Into The Woods
by anoushkala
Summary: AU Season 2 OFC fic. Sophia is found alive, but not alone. Can the group rebuild a life in their ravaged world under the new leadership of surviving Army Captain Aleda Schweiger and her group? Or will the devestation follow them into the woods?
1. Chapter 1

He heard it, long before he saw it. A shuffle of leaves, not of the wind, the crack of a twig. He held up a hand to Rick, the man moving into a defensive posture almost immediately. He lined his sight just as the Walker rounded the tree… and began to scream and flail like the biggest bitch Daryl had ever seen in his life.

"Oh Jesus fucking Christ, don't shoot, don't fucking shoot!"

It wasn't a Walker, but he knew by the blood staining the man's shorts that it wasn't long before he became one. The chunk missing from his hand was enormous, gauging from the thick and hurried bandaging around it, already soaked through with blood.

"You've been bit! There Walkers around here? How fucking many, which way?" Daryl barked.

Rick had already lowered his rifle, but Daryl kept the crossbow raised, pointed squarely at the man's eye.

"Daryl," Rick began, but he ignored him.

The man in question, a stocky black man, hair in cornrows, stumbled backwards into a tree, hands raised, whether in frantic defense or in pleading, Daryl did not care.

"It wasn't a fucking zedhead, I swear to God, I'm not infected, you don't have to shoot me."

"What in the fuck is going on here!" The voice split the air, off to the left, and Daryl was forced to change positions, matching aim for aim at the rifle facing him. Rick already raised his again.

She held the rifle sure, wasn't new to it he could tell, the easy heft of it in her hands, the certainty of her stance. Her skin was dark, hair black, tucked up beneath a desert camo service cap; Indian, he thought absurdly, maybe mixed with white. Something strange about her eyes, though. Hard to tell with her eye down the sight.

"Who the fuck are you?" she snarled, body coiled in tension. He didn't lower his weapon. She chose to try and take a shot at him, he'd take her out, simple fact, that was.

"I could ask you the same goddamn thing. What are you doing out here?"

"Taking a morning fucking stroll," she spat, sarcastically.

"Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." A third voice, this one rounding from behind the man cowering against the tree.

The man was short, average build, some sort of sand nigger, as Merle would say, later in life, not much a threat despite the revolver in his hand: the observations clicked off in his head, not so much thoughts as a straight absorption of the information. He'd never exactly been one for thinking.

"And where'd you come from, 7-11?"

There were too many targets to focus on, three guns to his crossbow. He shifted uneasily, unsure a moment, before picking the biggest threat. The woman.

"Is this what we're going to do, we're going to stand here pointing guns at each other until one of those freaks wanders up on us, this is what we're doing?" The man talked fast, his accent clear and clipped. Spoke good English though, Daryl thought grudgingly.

"They wanna lower their weapons, there ain't gonna be no problem." She didn't offer to be the first to do it though, Daryl could see.

"Look, let's all just calm down," Rick finally interjected. "We'll do it on three, alright. Everybody puts their weapon down."

"My ass," Daryl began.

"We lower our weapons," Rick repeated clearly, staring at him hard. "And we talk about this, like civilized human beings. We'll do it on three."

"You trust them?"

"We'll all lower it on three." Rick said again, looking to the woman.

"One," the woman began, shoulders relaxing, Daryl followed one step behind her, ready to raise and take the shot if necessary. "Two, three."

The man and woman lowered their guns, Daryl and Rick their weapons. Her posture never relaxed, Daryl noticed, muscles still corded beneath the DCU cargos, the tan t-shirt.

"You Army?"

"Jee, you're a regular Einstein, aren't you? That why you wandering around the woods. You lost, boy?"

He bristled at the insult, even as he took her in. She was fit, defined more so by lack of food, he imagined, like everyone else. Her shoulders wide, arms leanly muscled, hips slim and tight. Her eyes, her eyes were blue, like ice, stood out against her skin. Strange wasn't the word for it.

She'd be beautiful, he thought, if she weren't such an obvious bitch.

A scar stood out clearly against her throat, just above her collarbone. Pale pink and shiny, ragged, more so along the top edge where the rounded wound stretched up to an abrupt point, not new but not old. A few years, he thought. He knew a lot about how scars healed.

"What are you doing out here?" He repeated, sneering.

"Hunting." She said curtly. "You?"

"We're looking for a little girl. Have you seen her, any sign of a child out here?" Rick asked, the pleading tone obvious in his voice. For once, Daryl couldn't bring himself to feel the requisite disdain.

He looked to the woman for an answer, but she wasn't looking at Rick, or him, or anything it seemed. Her eyes peered off into space, and he felt it then, hackles rising, something behind him.

"Get down now." Her voice was clear, the words sharp but quiet, barely above a whisper. The rifle raised smoothly, a grace to it, he had to admit. He dropped on instinct, the shot ringing so quickly that his ear drum shook with the volume of it. He swore he could feel the heat, the whizz of the bullet past his head as he finally went ass to dirt, a strange yelp echoing through the late morning. Surely he hadn't made that sound.

"You crazy bitch," he screamed, "You could have fucking shot me!"

He scrambled around, looking. It wasn't a Walker, like he would have thought, but a coyote, gaunt, fur stringy, mouth ringed in blood, a perfect shot through the heart. He was forced to alter his focus again, as she stalked toward him, one slim finger pointed at his chest as she stood over him.

"Motherfucker, if I wanted to shoot you, you'd be dead already. Certainly wouldn't have given you no warning." She was deadly quiet, the accent Southern, he knew, but not Georgia. She wasn't from around here.

The black man was off the tree with another stumble, throwing out his injured hand in exuberance, tucking it back against his chest as the wound protested. Idiot, Daryl thought.

"I told you! What I tell you! I said it was a dog."

"That's a coyote, you moron." The woman snapped, stepping away from Daryl, slinging the hunting rifle over her shoulder.

"It's got four feet, fangs, and fur," the man with cornrows responded, "It's a fucking dog."

"You damn near busted my ear drum." Daryl groused as he made his way back to his feet, brushing at his jeans with a sheepishness that transferred straight to anger.

"Oh, man up," she scoffed. "Your ears gonna ring for half a day." The finger was in motion again, jabbing into his chest and sending him stumbling back. Not from the force, but simply the contact. Who the hell did she think she was, just walking up and laying hands on him? His shoulders straightened, chin raised; he could see Rick from the corner of his eye, bunching up already, prepared to step in.

"I have been out here for 6 hours now, tracking that bitch. I haven't had breakfast, I haven't had coffee," her finger jabbed into his chest again with each item she listed, finally forcing him to still lest he begin to retreat from her, "I haven't even had a goddamned cigarette, and you think I'm gonna miss my shot just because your dumbass is standing in the way? I don't fucking think so."

She stalked away before Rick felt forced to step in, and before Daryl truly felt shoving her on her ass would be a legitimate response to the situation. The middle eastern man followed her.

"Come on," she said lightly, hands hooking around the front legs of the animal. The older man grunted as he lifted his half, but she didn't strain with it, carrying the carcass easily to a patch of sunlight.

The man pulled from his pocket a small flashlight, leaning over the dead animal, peeling its eye open and shining the light into it.

"What are you doing?" Rick asked quietly.

"Checking for rabies," the man glanced up at him, hands moving to his pockets as he set the flashlight aside, pulling on a pair of latex gloves and moving on to the mouth, shining the light into the cavity.

"No sign of excessive salivation." He sat back on his heels again, looking up at the woman. "I can't exactly send the blood off for analysis. There's really only one way I can make a clear guess."

The woman nodded, already moving into action. From a sheath on the back of her pants came a small camp saw, a Gerber, he could see. She knelt down beside the older man, knee setting itself heavily over the animal's throat, flipping the blade easily in her hand, her fingers catching the flat edge, handing it over handle first.

"That good enough?"

"It will have to do." He answered.

"Sorry, doc, I knew we'd be out here dissecting a coyot' I'da stopped by Autopsies R Us for a bone saw and an extra-long extension cord." She said, the hostility in her voice too light to be true.

The black man paced worriedly, as Daryl and Rick could do little more than look on, helplessly confused.

The first grind of metal through fur, flesh, and finally bone caught Daryl's ears, forcing a flinch out of Rick. The little man began resolutely sawing the top of the skull off, the woman bracing the neck, keeping the head still. It took a few minutes, Rick and the injured man both looked sick, but finally the man forced his gloved fingers into the wound, using the tip of the saw to force the skull cap upward.

The woman took the saw back, wiping it carelessly on the calf of her pants before tucking it back in its sheath. She looked calm, collected, as though she were crossing the street-bored, and did this sort of thing every day.

"If the animal is infected," he chattered, "the brain will be swollen and inflamed." The skull cap was dropped to the ground, his small fingers digging in, carefully pulling the brain from the cavity. Daryl grimaced slightly.

The woman, still unperturbed, crouched down beside the 'Doc', tilting her head from side to side.

"Look like a normal brain to you?" she asked, quizzically.

"It appears to be," he said, tilting the pink and gray mass from one hand to another.

"That's a shame," she said idly. "Was kinda looking forward to putting him down as well…"

"Fuck you," the black man glowered. The woman smirked softly, a hateful and self-satisfied expression that sent a thrill of recognition through Daryl. It was an expression he remembered had often been on his brother's face anytime he found a chance to dig under someone's skin.

"We're not out of the woods yet. We still have to observe him." The elder man glanced to her, and then to the black man. "The most noticeable sign will be fear of water."

"A black man afraid of water… That is gonna tell us a whole lot." There was that smirk again, her drawl lazy and amused.

"I am about tired of your bullshit, Schweiger. Why you always coming at me?"

"If he develops a fever, delirium, we have reason to worry." The brown little man finished.

"He develops a fever, I'm gonna shoot him anyway." The woman, Schweiger, said plainly.

"Fuck you, you Nazi bitch! I've had it with you!"

The woman stood smoothly, a predatory grace only underlined by the fury Daryl could already see snapping in those odd blue eyes.

"What in the fuck did you just call me?"

"What, did I fucking stutter?" The injured man taunted.

"I guess you didn't." She said softly, shaking her head, a rueful chuckle emanating from deep in her throat.

The movement was swift, almost a blur. She was on him in a second, hands hooking over his shoulders as her knee drove up, hard, into his stomach. The air came out of him in a rush, stumbling back into the tree, and she was on him again before he could even right himself. There was a quick sound, one that Daryl knew, the snap of a switchblade. The hilt was black, metal, the blade long, straight, hollow in the middle, serrated on the opposite edge, just above a gut hook.

Her fingers dug into his cheeks as he choked, tried to breathe. She forced his mouth open, knife slipping quick inside the gap of his lips.

"You listen to me, you ignorant spook. You ever, ever, call me that again, and I will slice your fucking tongue out of your head, and I will feed it to you, bit by bit. Understand me, boy?"

He was shaking, just about to piss himself, Daryl thought. Rick looked to him, back to the others, to him again as though for a clue for the correct course of action. Daryl was content to watch.

"Did you understand me?" she barked in his face. He jerked, the edge of the blade cutting into his lips, a small rivulet of blood snaking down his chin.

"I understand," he mumbled, careful not to touch the knife again.

"Good," she said, and stepped away from him abruptly, the knife snapping shut and back into a pocket.

"Feel better?" the brown man sniped.

She swung in an instant, a left cross catching him square in the nose, and with a crunch and a yelp the man sank to the ground, cradling his face.

The older man let out a long suffering sigh as Schweiger smirked again, sniffing, and wiping down the front of her uniform.

"Now I do, Raj." She said sweetly, and gave a stunning smile.

"What… What is going on?" Rick stuttered.

"Family squabbles," Schweiger snarked. "We gotta cover up that carcass, or the smell's gonna draw in the freaks."

"Shouldn't be much effort," Raj mused, "Scrawny little thing, she just had pups… That is sad. They're eating up all the smaller game. The mother was starving, she had to feed her pups, went after the only food source she could find: Dereon."

"Why the fuck she gotta bite me?" Dereon mumbled from behind his hands, sounding watery, the blood seeping slowly through his fingers.

"Maybe she liked dark meat." Schweiger grinned, and Raj rolled his eyes, and interrupted before Dereon could reply.

"You two are like fucking five year olds, constantly picking at each other. Now_ I'm_ tired of this." Raj snapped, arms waving. "Both of you shut up!"

Chaos, Daryl thought, what in the hell had they stumbled upon?

Schweiger seemed to yield to Raj's demands, and wheeled on Rick and Daryl suddenly.

"So, you usually just let your kids wander around out here among the monsters?"

"We didn't let her do anything!" Daryl snapped.

"She was being chased by Walkers," Rick cut in, "I hid her, led them away from her, but when I came back for her, she was gone. Please, do you know anything at all? Her mother is worried sick."

The look on her face was carefully blank, a poker face if Daryl had ever seen one, and his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"I tell you what, uh…" she looked at him expectantly.

"Daryl," he answered.

"Rick," the man said, as Schweiger pointed at him.

"Aleda," she pointed to herself, and the others in turn, "Raj, Dereon. We're done with our task. We're heading back to camp, and it's not far from here. Now you both look like your bellybutton's at your backbone and your asshole is reaching for acorns, so why don't you come back to camp with us, and we'll talk a little more about this little girl you lost over a warm meal, hmm?"

Daryl narrowed his eyes as he turned to look at Rick, knowing on sight that the man understood his suspicions.

She knew something.

Author Notes:

This is my first ever The Walking Dead fic , and I'm terrified. Also, because its the first OC story I've ever published. I feel guilty. *LOL* The original characters are of my own invention, mainly my main character Aleda Schweiger.

I became fascinated with the character of Daryl Dixon around the start of the second season, when I really started to see his character open up. During this horrible break (woot, 5 more days!) I've had to have something to concentrate on, for lack of new episodes.

I began to ponder what it would be like if Daryl were a girl, and from there she actually became a character. I wanted to create someone who could meet him blow for blow, thus my OFC.

Be gentle, but please review and I'll love you forever! Any questions, feel free to ask, I will respond.


	2. Chapter 2

The sun had risen steadily higher in the sky, raising itself just like the temperature and the humidity as the day, and the hike they were taking, wore on. By the time they passed the same, identical outcropping of rock for what was surely the fifth time, Daryl could contain himself no longer, grinding to a halt.

"Are _you _lost? Cause this isn't the first time we've been through here."

"Hmm," she intoned. "I think you might be right. You really are a regular Einstein." She smirked at him easily, infuriatingly.

"You're doing it on purpose." Rick said quietly, wiping tiredly at the sweat beading upon his brow.

"Why the hell would you do that?" Daryl swung back to her, finding her resting easily against a tree, arms crossed over her chest.

"She doesn't want us to know where we are." Rick finished, and the woman, Aleda, he thought, gave an affirmative tilt of her head.

"Just because you say you're out here looking for a little girl, doesn't mean you're the kind of person I want knowing where I lay down at night… and just cause you made it this far doesn't mean you're smart enough to know a losing battle when you see one."

"You obviously have cause for caution." Rick said, carefully choosing his words.

"You could say that. I have no idea who you are, whether you're even telling me the truth. You might be just another pair of assholes out to take our food, our medicine, hell, even our women. You think I'm just gonna lead you straight into camp?"

Daryl nodded curtly, admitting for a moment the truth of her statement. It was every man for himself these days. Their little group had all banded together out of desperation, need, but he knew there would be others out there, not keen on the idea of joining anything, only taking what they needed, wanted, and killing to get it.

"How much longer you gonna send us on a wild goose chase?" he muttered, leaning back against a tree himself.

"Not much longer," Dereon huffed, leaning over his knees, cradling his hand to his chest again. "I'm fucking dying here."

Aleda let out a snort, rolling her eyes.

"You ain't gonna die. The alum's gonna keep it clotted long enough for us to get it cleaned and stitched. You know MaryAnn'd slit my throat in my sleep I brought you back in less pieces than you already are."

The man chuckled ruefully, looking up to Aleda.

"She would, wouldn't she?" He shook his head, straightening up slowly. "I'm sorry. For how I acted… what I said. Knew it wasn't right when I was saying it."

Raj dug into a pocket of his khakis, withdrawing a red bandanna he mopped over his face with a miserable expression.

"You're in pain… not the most rational person to begin with."

"Fuck you, old man." The epithet came with no heat, a tired smile tugging at his full lips.

Aleda shifted uncomfortably, drawing one knee up to brace a boot against the trunk of the tree, shrugging one shoulder awkwardly.

"Sorry about your nose. Donovan'll set it, we get back to camp."

"I deserved it." He shrugged.

"Yeah, you did," she replied with a glower.

"Can we get a move on?" Raj asked, tucking the damp rag back into his pocket.

Aleda nodded her head in assent, pushing away from the tree with her foot.

"Not far now."

"Yeah," Daryl drawled. "You said the same thing an hour ago."

"It's the truth this time."

It proved to be. Little more than five minutes later, they broke the tree line, the sun hitting Daryl full in the face as they stepped out onto a hard-packed, wide dirt road.

"This way," Aleda uttered with a jerk of her head, leading them up the swell of a small ridge, head swiveling from side to side as she took in her surroundings.

"Where are we?" Rick asked, picking up his pace a little to fall in step with the woman.

"As far from civilization as we can get without hiking our asses to Alaska. This road goes 25 miles back from the main road. We're about three-quarters of the way up the mountain, now. There's a logging camp at the end. Gave us a good, flat, broad place to set up. Good view from the mountain. We generally see them before they see us. Not many of them out here. Less people, less Walkers." She gave a shrug, adjusting the rifle's strap over her shoulder, looking over to Rick.

Daryl followed behind in silence, content to listen, as was often his habit. Better to stay quiet, and thought of as stupid, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt, his grandmother had always said.

"How many in your group?" The ever present hat finally left Rick's head, waving lazily in his hand to fan his sweat-soaked face.

"55, altogether."

"55?" Daryl nearly choked on the number.

"Had more in the beginning," Aleda looked to him, a slight sadness behind the forced flatness of her gaze. "Lost a lot to the initial infection. We've gathered more as time's gone on. People find their way up the mountain, same idea as we had. We find some in the towns, holed up, some on the roads. We never turn anyone way. There's safety in numbers. The only way we get through this is if one day there's more of us than there is of them."

Daryl nodded quietly.

"How many died?" The question surprised him, springing unbidden from his lips.

She sighed softly, eyes turning up as she walked.

"Another 50, give or take, you don't count the losses at Benning."

Rick perked at the word, swinging into step with her again.

"Fort Benning? It was hit?"

"Benning's gone. It's where I came from, where most of us came from."

"But… how… all those guns, all the soldiers, the fortifications. How could it have fallen?"

She sighed again, adjusting the cap on her head, uncomfortable, it seemed, having to review this information.

"When the evacuation started, we took in survivors. Evacuees from as far as Atlanta. People that had flown like bats out of hell, coming to us for protection. But a lot of them lied. They were bitten already, bound the wounds up and hid them. People started getting sick, dying, coming back. And so many… so many of them were quick. Nurses were gathering the bodies, opening up the bed for the next sick person, but they started attacking. The infirmary was overrun, it spread like wildfire. People panicked. The soldiers turned on the civilians… then they turned on themselves."

Rick looked as though a boot had been placed squarely in his gut, an expression Daryl found himself weary to the bone of: the loss of all hope.

"There's really nothing left." He whispered.

"At Benning, no… Lots of dead soldiers and civilians… Some of them walking around, some not. We got the hell out of Dodge, found a surveyor's map, in City Hall, one town over. Found this place. Couldn't think of anywhere better to go. It's proved effective so far. Easily defensible."

They rounded the crest of the hill, finally, Aleda suddenly coming to a stop. Beneath them lay a valley, clear cut in a circle the size of several football fields. Barb and razor wire stretched between the trees, lay in grids along the ground, only inches between each strand, forming a retaining wall of sorts around the camp.

"Jesus," Rick breathed, and Daryl shared in his awe. Tents, campers, RVs, dozens of them, dozens of people. More live people than he had seen in months. Trucks, cars, motorcycles lined the logging road on either side.

Aleda dug into her pants again, and Rick looked up at the familiar crackle of a walkie being fired up.

"Scout to home base, come in."

There was a moment of static, before a deep voice, a male's voice answered back.

"Home base responding. What's your position?"

"Requisite 1000 yards. Coming back in. ETA less than 5."

"Hold your position."

Silence again, before a flurry of responses came over the radio.

"Captain's back. All towers hold your fire."

"Friendlies coming in."

"Holding fire."

"Fire held."

At least four more voices answered, in much the same fashion.

"Line clear. Make your approach. Gate is opening."

She swung her hand over her shoulder, motioning for them to follow her down the hill.

"What was all that?" asked Daryl.

"Me making sure we don't all end up in the ground. Anything comes within range that doesn't announce itself is getting a bullet in the head."

The walk was short, gravity pushing his legs down the hill much quicker than his aching muscles. He felt tired, stringy, hungry past the point of sickness. Plumes of campfire smoke rose from the circle of vehicles, the smell of roasting food torture and ecstasy at the same time.

"Nothing comes in or out of the gate without prior permission. Too many civvies to let people be wandering on their own." Aleda said, gait easy and graceful. Daryl thought of a deer in that moment, bounding, wild, beautiful. He rubbed at his eyes quickly.

The sun must be frying his brain.

They reached the gate in almost exactly five minutes. It was haphazard, two wooden cattle gates attached one atop the other, two metal ones behind it, the entire structure wound with barb wire, what looked like railroad spikes protruding from it. It swung open as soon as they approached, guided with a rope by a man standing on top of what Daryl now realized were the 'towers' the man on the radio had spoken of. Six to eight people, armed all, stood atop each camper, RV, even a few cargo containers, the structures circled around the camp like something out of an old western.

Circle up the wagons, boys, he thought, ludicrously.

They entered quickly, the gate slamming shut behind them, a teenage girl sliding down the ladder on the back of a Winnebago to latch it shut, before shimmying up again, taking back the proffered rifle an older white man handed her.

They made it little farther than the front gate before a black woman, dressed similarly in fatigues, rushed in their direction.

"Dereon… Jesus, what happened to him? Is he gonna be alright?" She spun toward Aleda, cropped hair brushing across her forehead with the force of the movement.

"_Er werde in Ordnung sein. Die Wunde muss gereinigt werden, und gut. Er nannte mich einen_ Nazi." She spat on the ground much as she spat out the word. "_Niemand wird jemals mich so nennen_."

His eyes darted back to Aleda as the words sprang from her lips as easily as the English had, the accent perfect, like something out of a World War Two movie.

"What?" The woman, MaryAnn he guessed, screamed. "You called her what!" She shoved at his chest, even her small frame producing enough force to send the man stumbling backward.

"I said I was sorry," he stuttered, and it was almost worth a laugh to see the man cowering from the much smaller MaryAnn.

"You ungrateful nigger! She goes out, risks her life for you, and you call her that?"

The slap rang with a force Daryl thought he could feel in his own head.

"Get back to the fucking tent." She shoved at him, sending him stumbling again.

Testy bitch, Daryl thought idly, looking back to see Aleda watching with a blank expression. She turned on him then, meeting his gaze and holding it, too long it seemed. He felt uncomfortable, and silently cursed his own weakness.

"Come on," Aleda said, back to English again, the change just as seamless as before, finally turning away from him.

The little brown man, Raj, split from them, leaving Daryl and Rick trailing behind the woman again. She removed the cap quickly, balling it up and stuffing it into her thigh pocket. The tan shirt, dark with sweat around her arms, chest, and back, pulled swiftly over her head, leaving her in nothing more than pants and a sports bra… and tattoos. There was a German flag on her left shoulder, a crown of thorns beneath it, a dream catcher on her right side, feathers snaking among her ribs, a spray of peony roses that stretched from arm to hip along her left side. The detail was exquisite, so real Daryl felt he could feel the individual petals if he simply reached out and touched them. His fingertips felt scalded, though his arm never moved. A Japanese dancing girl sprawled carelessly across the hollow of her back, a line of characters up her spine, the meaning to which Daryl had not the foggiest.

There was nearly as many scars as tattoos, he noted, the linear marks of a stab wound just behind the roses, two ragged holes he knew meant through-and-through gun shots, one at the crest of her shoulder, another in her side, just below an inky black feather.

She stuffed the shirt into her back pocket, continuing on resolutely to the center of the camp, hands moving quickly to wind her coarse, straight hair into a haphazard bun. The smell of roasting meat hit him like a truck, and Daryl could see they were nearing a fire pit, a small statured man next to it, bending over an iron skillet. Mexican, Daryl thought.

"There she is! Losing clothes as she goes." The man's accent surprised him, as Georgian as his own, not a hint of Spanish.

"I can't stand this shit anymore. I hate your state."

"Ain't so hot," the man smirked.

"It's not the heat. I can stand the heat. It's this humidity. It's enough to drown a goddamned fish. You can't even sweat properly!"

He laughed, loud and long, as Schweiger sat down on a log near the fire, snatching greedily at the Black and Mild the Latino passed her way. She tore the plastic off, throwing it carelessly away even as the man chided quietly about littering. A Zippo, adorned with a rebel flag, found its way out of another pocket, and she took the first drag like the first breath of a drowning man.

Two guns were inked over either hipbone on her stomach, tilted down as though stuffed into her waistband, a Colt 45 and what looked like a tactical pistol, Sig Sauer, Daryl thought. Between them was a small black symbol Daryl knew well. The lightning bolts, the symbol of the SS.

"Well, that's what you get, signing up for your tours back to back to back. You went and got used to the desert." The man's hands busied himself with pouring coffee from a tin percolator, adding sugar and nothing else as he handed the small cup to her.

She snorted loudly.

"No one gets used to that place. The people who live there ain't used to that fucking hell hole."

"Course not," the man chirped, "Look where they live. Ain't no wonder they pissed off all the time. Hell, we coulda bombed them back to the stone age and they'dve thought it was a fucking upgrade!"

She snorted again, but the ghost of a smile flirted with the corner of her lips.

"Ah! Was that a smile, I think that's a smile. You gonna put the uber-bitch back in her cage and act like a human being for once this morning?"

"Fuck you," she muttered into her coffee, biting her lips together to hide the grin, failing miserably.

"You know you woke me up this morning, right? Thirteen fucking tents away, and I can hear your ass screaming at 5 in the fucking morning."

"You'd be screaming to, somebody come tearing into your tent telling you you gotta go out and help some asshole you don't even like. What he was doing down by the river by himself that early, I'll never know. Shoulda shot him, saved myself from any future stupidity," she growled.

The man laughed again, looking up, seeming only to just register Daryl and Rick's presence.

"Who is this?" he asked, looking to Aleda questioningly.

"Picked up some strays in the woods." She took another sip of her coffee, pursed her lips for a moment before continuing. "_Dicen que buscan a una niña_."

The man stopped, hands paused in their task of loading bacon, (oh Jesus, bacon, Daryl thought, mouth watering uncontrollably), onto a plastic plate.

"_Una niña_? _Crees que es ella están buscando_?"

He finished his task, handing over the plate of bacon and the distinctly rubbery lump of what he knew to be powdered eggs. She accepted it, stuffing a crispy strip of the fatty meat into her mouth immediately.

"_Descubriremos_." She said, mouth still full. She swallowed hurriedly, looking up to them and gesturing with her free hand.

"Sit down. You're hovering. Makes me nervous."

Rick was the first to sit, awkwardly, stiffly. Daryl remained standing, earning him an angry glare from the woman.

"I'm sorry. Did some part of that sound like a request?"

He opened his mouth, a nasty comment perched on the end of his tongue, but Rick shot him a look that was enough for him to squeeze his jaw shut, sinking reluctantly on the other end of the log from Rick.

"What's your names?" The man said, a friendly smile on his face.

"Rick Grimes," he nodded, and extended a hand, which the man accepted.

"And you?" He looked to Daryl, offered his hand.

Daryl did little more than stare at it, before his eyes darted back to the pan, the strips of meat still sizzling there.

"Daryl Dixon."

The man shrugged, seemingly unperturbed by the slight.

"Miguel Nunez. Everybody calls me Mikey, though. Ya'll look hungry… There's enough for ev—"

"Yes," Daryl blurted out.

Mikey laughed, finishing the plate he had been working on, only to have it snatched out of his hands before they were even fully extended. Not waiting for silverware, Daryl took a scoop of eggs and bacon and stuffed his mouth full.

"Where'd you get this?" Rick asked, taking his plate politely, with a thank you and a fork.

"Salt-cured," Aleda answered. "It's on its last leg though. Best to eat it now, before it goes to waste. Not likely to have any more anytime soon."

The three of them ate in silence, the occasional slurp or gulp coming from Daryl's direction.

"So," Aleda began, looking up to them from her empty plate. "I want you to tell me about this little girl you lost."

"Like what?" Daryl asked, mouth still half full, drawing an amused quirk to the woman's lips.

"Well, you really know her, you'll know about her. What's she look like, how old is she, what's her name?"

Rick took over from there, Daryl swallowing his last bite.

"She's 12. Small for her age… blonde hair, about to her chin… umm, freckles. She was wearing a pair of khaki capris, and a tie dye shirt when we lost her. Her name is Sophia."

"Sophia, huh?"

"Yes."

There was a sudden ruckus to one side, a group of 15 or so children running by, howling and laughing.

Aleda raised a hand to her mouth quickly, a shrill whistle tearing from between her fingers.

"Hey! Quiet it down!"

The kids froze in place, all looking in different degrees of terror toward the woman.

"Sorry, Captain," they all spoke in unison, like kids in a classroom.

She raised a hand, curling a finger through the air as the crowd began to disperse, much more quietly this time.

"Peletier! Come here!"

Daryl choked on his mouthful of coffee at the sound of that name. Rick looked as though he would have done much the same, had he been drinking. Sputtering, eyes watering heavily, he could almost imagine the tiny form moving in his direction to be a wraith, a ghost.

She walked slowly at first, before her tiny feet began pounding the ground as she set out into a full run, yowling at the top of her lungs.

Tiny as she was, her weight hit Daryl like a brick wall, her skinny arms locking like vices around his and Rick's necks.

She sobbed uncontrollably, and Rick held onto her tightly. Daryl could think of little more than finding a way out of the unwanted contact.

Aleda was watching him, he realized, even as he tried to find a purchase strong enough to force a release without hurting the little girl.

"Peletier. You're either gonna choke him to death or give him a heart attack. Leggo."

The tiny blonde sprang to her next, but Aleda accepted the embrace more readily than Daryl ever could, ever had. She rocked back and forth with her, hands brushing over her hair.

"Uh-uh, no crying, soldier. What I tell you? They'd never leave you behind. Just had to find them to find you, is all."

Author's Note:

The 'stone age upgrade' line is a Robin Williams joke.

The two languages spoken were German and Spanish, the translations are as follows.

Er werde in Ordnung sein. Die Wunde muss gereinigt werden, und gut. Er nannte mich einen Nazi. Niemand wird jemals mich so nennen. – He'll be OK. The wound must be cleaned, and good. He called me a Nazi. No one will ever call me that.

Dicen que buscan a una niña. – They're looking for a little girl.

Una niña? Crees que es ella están buscando? – A girl? Do you think she's the one they're looking for?

Descubriremos – We're about to find out.

I just wanted to clear something up. One reviewer seems to think that I'm trying to make a carbon copy of our dear Daryl, and a bad one at that. On the contrary, Aleda is her own 'person' and has her own story. I only wanted to create a character who shared enough personality traits with Daryl to not be intimidated by him, to give as good as she got when it came to him. She is by no means perfect. She has a lot of emotional issues of her own, to be revealed later in the story, springing from her time in combat and her experiences at Benning. She is not 'invincible'. She is a 32 year old Captain in the US Army, a graduate of West Point, a veteran of Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom, and a translator who has been working with Spec Ops teams in Iraq and Afghanistan for several years. She has legitimate reasons to be a so-called 'badass', just like any other soldier, and that in no way makes her unrealistic. With that said, hopefully the next chapter will be up soon. Hope you enjoy!


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note:

Aleda shows a different side of her personality.

Daryl has a pensive moment, along with a tiny Dixon pity party, much to his chagrin.

Semi-erotic content in the form of thoughts, so those who don't want that sort of thing be forewarned.

OOOOOO

She held her several minutes longer, fingers threading through her hair, flat palms running over her back, rubbing up and down her arms, shushing and whispering into her ear quietly. The racking sobs died slowly, retreating into little but sniffles, and finally silence.

Her face was streaked in tears, eyes red and puffy, upper lip shiny with mucus.

"Now look at that mess," Aleda clucked quietly, pulling the dangling shirt from beneath her, and wiping carefully, holding it against her face. "Blow," she ordered softly, and Sophia sniffled again, gave an embarrassed little giggle as she obeyed.

"Got your shirt all dirty," she whispered meekly, wiping at her eyes with her hands.

"Ain't the worst thing been in my shirt, I tell you that."

She ruffled the little girl's mop of hair, before smoothing it out again.

Daryl would never admit it to himself, but the envy ate at him, curled like a poisonous thing somewhere deep in his guts: how easily she touched the girl, how quickly she comforted her, how different now she seemed than even two hours ago. How could she change so quickly, while he himself could barely find the breath to speak a kind word, even as it strangled itself in his throat.

She was a hard woman, Daryl did not need days of observation to come to this conclusion, but there was more to her, caring and gentle. She was complex, and what was he? Some sad caricature, trailer trash, an asshole, little more than tolerated by a world that would have been perfectly happy to have been without him: worth nothing, anyway.

His teeth gritted together, shoving the thoughts down like rotting garbage in an overflowing dumpster.

"Now clear your eyes. Straighten your shoulders. Lift that head up, girly. Everything's gonna be alright now." Sophia sniffled again, obeying and straightening her tiny form.

Aleda smiled (beautiful, some maddening part of him whispered again, unlike anything he had known before) and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead, smoothing her hair back from her face again.

He wondered what that felt like, comfort given with nothing asked in return. Suddenly, he wondered what her lips would feel like on _his_ skin, her hands cupped around his face, whether they would be coarse and battle worn, if her lips would be soft, what those scars on her back would feel like beneath the rough of his tongue as his fingers dug bruises into those slender hips, if she could ever bring herself to touch him so easily, with such care and attention.

He squeezed his eyes shut, grinding the heels of his hands into the sockets.

This was it, he thought, this was the end. It had all finally gotten to him.

He was losing his mind.

As hard as he scrubbed, he could not remove the images from behind his eyes. God, it had been so long since anyone had touched him in anything but anger, longer than that since anyone had touched him out of choice. His body ached at the thought of it, a chance to forget it all for a moment, to find some relief, some comfort, to lose himself in a woman, mouth full with the tang of her sweat, drowning himself in the smell of her, to think of nothing but her and know she thought of nothing but him. Just to steal those few moments of peace, of ecstasy, to feel something more than second best, more than pain and rage, fear and misery.

The little girl's voice startled him out of his spiraling thoughts. (Here, take her, his brother's voice whispered in his mind, I'm done with her. She's fucked up enough she ain't gonna mind if your ugly ass fucks her next. Done got what she really wanted anyway.) He shifted uncomfortably, the throbbing, desperate flesh in his groin painful and tight against the fabric of his jeans.

"Is.. is my Mama okay? And… and Carl?"

Rick nodded beside Daryl, oblivious to his distress, tears filling his eyes despite the smile on his lips.

"Everyone's okay. We've all been so worried about you, Sophia."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, tears glittering in her eyes again, as well, "I'm sorry. You told me to stay, but more of them came. I was so scared. I ran and… and I couldn't remember what you said, I didn't listen, I just kept running, I—"

"It's alright, honey, it's all over now. You're safe, and that's all that matters. We'll get you back to your Mama soon. She's gonna be so happy to see you."

"Sophia," a small voice. Daryl swiveled his gaze to see a small child, five or six, he thought, standing a few feet from them. "I thought you were gonna play with my Barbies."

The girl looked torn, glancing desperately between Rick, and the little girl.

"Why don't you go on, sweetcakes. Go play. The grownups gonna figure this out, alright? Go have some fun." She made an easy gesture, shooing her away.

Looking to Rick again, he nodded to her, and Sophia smiled, the soft, sad smile that had been the only one Daryl had ever seen grace her tiny lips since he had met her.

"Okay," she said quietly. The little girl grabbed her hand, dragged her away, despite how much shorter her legs were compared to the other girl.

She waited until Sophia had disappeared behind a bank of tents before she turned back to them, glancing first at Rick and then to him. He swallowed, ridiculously certain that his thoughts were emblazoned clearly on his face.

"You have children of your own?" Rick asked, smiling softly to her, wiping at his eyes unashamedly.

"Me? God no, why?"

"You're so good with her." He shrugged, and she shrugged in return, picking up the half-smoked cigar from the ground and lighting it again.

"I like kids… Pretty sure there's some law on the books against me ever reproducing, though. Last thing the world needs is another one of me." She gave a self-deprecating grin. "The whole family thing isn't for me. I've always been married to my work."

"How long have you been in?" Daryl asked quietly, surprised the words even made it past his now parched throat.

"Fourteen years, now. Guess I can stop counting at this point." She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, taking another drag off the cigar, speaking through the smoke as she exhaled. "So, what's your plan?"

"We've got another seven hours of good light," Daryl said, and Rick nodded.

"We should be able to make it back to the highway before dark."

She shook her head, hard enough that a strand of hair fell from the bun on top of her head, catching in the sweat on her cheek. He had the absurd thought of reaching out to brush it away.

She'd probably succeed in shooting him, this time.

"That ain't gonna work."

"What do you mean?" Rick asked, forehead wrinkling.

"I ain't sending her out in those woods again. She almost died last time."

"What?" Rick's voice was barely above a whisper.

"She had a Walker on her, we found her. Already had his teeth through her shirt, ripped it open. I didn't think there was any chance. No way she could have gotten so close to one and not gotten infected somehow… but I had to take the chance. We brought her back to camp, washed her up and looked her over, but there was no wounds."

"Jesus Christ," Rick covered his mouth with his hands. Daryl knew well what he was thinking, that if the Walker had succeeded, if the little girl had died, it would have been his fault.

"It'd been after her for hours. She was tired… and about to give up. She wasn't even fighting anymore. We got her back to camp, got her in some clean clothes, got her a full belly, put her up in MaryAnn's and Dasha's rack. Little thing slept fifteen hours straight, cried three hours after that. Said she knew she'd never see her Mama again, that she was gonna lose her just like she lost her Daddy… You got no idea how grateful I am to have found you two. Too many orphans in this camp already."

"No, no. I cannot thank you enough for what you've done. I was the one who put her in danger… you saved her life. We never would have found her. She would've died alone and…" he trailed off, throat tightening and choking off the words.

"And it's all over with. Anyone of us can sit here and place the blame on any number of things, but the fact is the time has passed. It's done, and over with, and there's no changing it." Her eyes were slate, he noticed, hard and flat again, a muscle ticcing in her jaw. "We all got our own regrets. We dwell on them and every one of us is gonna end up with a barrel in our mouths, you understand?"

Rick swallowed, nodded, took a deep breath and composed himself.

"Not far from the highway from here."

"It's half a day's walk from here," Daryl protested.

She shook her head, and pointed over his shoulder.

"Not as the crow flies, it's not."

Rick and he both turned, looking to where she had pointed. At the farthest edge of the camp, on a large empty patch of ground, perched a Blackhawk.

Rick laughed, sounding almost delirious.

"A helicopter… I knew it, I knew it."

Aleda looked at him quizzically, as though unsure of his sanity.

"When I was in Atlanta… I saw it, I saw it go over."

She nodded slowly.

"We were doing runs over Atlanta early on, trying to find survivors. Not enough payout, for as much fuel as we wasted. We got enough left in the barrels for a few more trips. You think you can find on a map where you come from?"

Rick nodded quickly.

"How many in your group? We can fit eleven in the bird."

"There's eight back on the highway. Dale's not gonna wanna leave his 'Bago behind, though." Daryl said.

Aleda nodded in response.

"More'n enough room. I'm gonna send Murphy and Mikey with you. Mikey can direct your vehicles back here, and we can get your women and children flown right in. You gather up here, get a good night's sleep, good bath, good food. You decide what you want to do from there. Sound like a plan?"

Looking between each other, they finally nodded.

OOOOOO

He'd never been in one of these before. There had always been helicopter flights at the county fair, but Daryl always made sure he was more interested in barbecue and as much beer as he could swill down. He'd shoot himself right in the face before he ever admitted to anyone he was terrified of heights.

He swallowed, advancing on the metallic beast slowly.

"HOT DAMN!" Somebody hooted, a man of medium height rushing for the 'copter, swinging up and into it, diving straight for the pilot's seat. The Mexican, Mikey, trailed in from the left, wearing a visible expression of discomfort that made Daryl feel slightly better about his own.

"You get anymore excited, Murph, you're gonna piss yourself."

"I live for this shit," the man barked from the front of the cabin, flipping several switches. There was a low hum before the rotors started slowly. The breeze felt great, brisk enough to force its way through his sweat-soaked hair, cooling his scalp.

"I live to live, man. Being that high up in the air ain't the way to do it."

"Oh come on, ya fucking wet blanket. 879 successful combat flights, and you think I can't make it twenty miles over empty forest and farm land?"

"Yeah, well, just do your fucking job, man," Mikey grumbled, ducking as he approached the helicopter and climbed inside.

He ground his teeth together, not to be the last in, and climbed in quickly behind the man, Rick climbing up behind him.

"Strap in, boys. This shouldn't take more than thirty minutes."

OOOOOO

Carol paced the asphalt, unable to stay still, afraid that inactivity would bring back the thoughts, the knowledge that her little girl was alone and scared and abandoned out there somewhere. How could Rick have left her? How could he have lost her?

Lori and Andrea sat closely together, watching her path, up the road, and down again. They both shared the same desperate hope, that any minute Daryl and Rick would return from the woods, Sophia with them, that the little girl had survived the night. More than a hope, a need, a need for all of them. Lori held onto Carl tightly.

Dale perched himself atop his RV, binoculars and rifle ever present. Glenn and T-Dogg sat miserably in the 90 degree shade on the pavement beside it. Shane kept to himself, still elbow deep in the engine of his new toy.

"They've been gone for hours," Carol began, stopping before Lori and Andrea.

"I'm sure everything is fine, Carol." Lori said, knowing the words were a lie even as they escaped her lips, knowing the woman before her knew it.

She stopped finally, sinking against the hood of her Cherokee, trying unsuccessfully to stifle her tears. She was surprised that she had any left to cry.

Lori glanced to Andrea, sharing the same hopeless glance with the blonde woman. What would they do if they did not return with Sophia? What would they do if they never returned at all? What if Daryl and Rick were lost to the forest just as the child had been? How many Walkers were out there, how many threats?

She pushed the thoughts resolutely from her mind, wiping the sweat from her forehead, pushing her hair back from her face. Her hands stopped as she tucked the strands of her hair behind her ear.

She didn't… surely not.

She paused, finally cupped a hand around her ear, raising a finger from her other hand to quiet Andrea, the woman looking at her questioningly.

It wasn't long before she heard it, too.

"Do you hear that?" she whispered, and Lori sprang to her feet, dragging Carl with her. "Dale! Do you hear that?"

The man had, she could tell, already standing at attention, straining his ears, binoculars scanning the area around them quickly.

"I hear it! I can't tell where it's coming from, though."

Andrea rushed to her feet so quickly, she nearly fell again, pointing desperately, southbound down the highway.

"There it is! He was telling the truth!" She screamed. "Rick saw it, he saw it!"

Shane had made his way back to the group, shading his eyes with his hands as he looked in the direction of everyone's attention.

"That's a helicopter," T-Dogg yelled, scrambling clumsily to his feet, "It's a fucking helicopter! You see it, too?"

"I see it, I see it." Dale said quickly, kneeling quickly at the edge of the roof. "Quick, I've got a flare gun in the glove compartment, get it, QUICK."

Glenn was on his feet and into the RV before T-Dogg could even make it to a full standing position. By the time he was fully on his feet, Glenn had already tore out of the door again. Dale reached for the gun desperately, as Glenn tossed it up, unsuccessfully.

"Quick, boy, quick!"

The second throw met its mark, Dale pointing it straight into the air, firing even while he prayed aloud that it would work.

It went up with a whoosh, streaking through the air, leaving a trail of smoke, exploding in the air. T-Dogg waved his arms desperately; Lori, Andrea, and Carol all grabbed for dirty laundry, swinging it through the air, all screaming at the top of their lungs.

The helicopter tilted lazily from side to side, dipping in the air.

"It's a signal!" Glenn screamed. "They've seen us! Oh Jesus Christ!"

"Benning," Shane said, quickly. "Gotta be from Benning."

The Blackhawk slowed, lowering carefully into the first clear place on the highway it could find. A figure strapped in the seat nearest the door tore off his belts, clambering out of the cabin quickly.

"Is that…. Is that _Daryl_?" Glenn asked, incredulously.

The entire group took off running, ducking down as the rotors began to slow to a stop.

Rick exited next, Lori nearly tackling him as his feet hit the ground.

Carol could barely bring herself to move. Where was her little girl?

"Sophia! Sophia!" She screamed. Daryl rushed to her, slinging his crossbow across his chest. She grabbed desperately at his arms. "Where's my little girl?"

"She's fine. She's alive. We found her, Miss Carol."

Rick kissed Lori hard, hugging Carl to his hip. He grinned from ear to ear at the others, tilting his head back toward the helicopter.

"We found a lot of things out there."


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note:

(This is a short little interlude. It's been a long day, so I don't have the energy to edit. I wanted to get this posted tonight, so please forgive any typos.)

Aleda has her own moment of thoughtfulness, and gets curious about a certain crossbow-carrying smartass, hearing about him through the eyes of a child.

OOOOOO

"There are more of them coming!" said the leader of the small group, swinging her long blonde hair as her tiny hands wrapped around the M-16.

"Not more than we can handle!" her brunette partner answered.

"We can handle anything!" the redhead answered, tipping quickly across the gravel in her yellow stiletto high heels.

"Let's get them!" the blonde yelled. "Pow, pow, pow, pow!"

"No!" Philippe screeched, snatching the blonde Barbie away from his sister, peeling his GI Joe's M-16 out of the tiny plastic hands.

"Philippe! No, give it back!" Philippa yelled, lunging for him, reaching unsuccessfully to snatch back the tiny plastic assault rifle from her taller brother.

"No! It's mine! You didn't even ask, and besides, don't no girls carry guns!" he snapped, southern accent laced with Creole, his shaggy blonde hair falling down onto his forehead as he shoved her roughly with his free hand.

"Now, hey, hey, no snatching!" Aleda answered, handing the redhaired doll to Sophia as she stood to break the squabble between the twins that was quickly about to become a brawl.

"Hey!" Candy had spotted the rising issue and scrambled over, the tiny woman snatching her son back by the collar of his shirt, giving the seven year old a quick swat on his ass.

"Ow! Mama!"

"Don't hit your sister! What did I tell you about sharing, Philippe Dupree?"

"Why should I share my guns with her stupid old Barbie! Girls can't shoot!"

"I have a gun." Aleda answered, a perturbed, yet amused expression upon her face. "And I shoot it very well."

"But you ain't no girl," Philippe answered, nose wrinkled, as though that should be obvious.

Aleda snorted, looking to Candy. Sophia sat quietly, all three Barbie's laid across her bent knees.

"Thanks a lot, kid."

Candy laughed, unable to maintain the stern, disciplinarian look she had been previously going for.

"You'll be learning to use a gun soon, Philippe." His face brightened immediately. "And so will your sister. _Everyone _will learn, even girls." The happiness faded almost immediately, stomping off with all the force his 60 pound body could muster.

"Boys," Candy sighed.

Aleda shook her head, mouth curled in an incredulous smile.

"I don't know how you do it… Five kids? You do know what causes that, right?" Aleda asked, sinking back Indian-style upon the ground beside Sophia, taking back her redheaded Barbie and the proffered pink comb that came with it, giving the girl a soft smile that she returned, returning to the careful grooming of her own doll.

"Her little ass looking so good all the time," came a deep voice, Creole accent thick and clear.

"Afternoon, Renee." Aleda answered with a nod which the man returned.

"Hi, Mr. Dupree." Sophia whispered quietly, glancing up.

"Well, hello there, Little Miss Peletier."

"Daddy!" Philippa yelled, running straight for him. The man, a good 6'7'', stooped considerably to pick up his only daughter. "Philippe was being mean to me!"

"Well, we'll just have to straighten him out later. Let's put a snake in his pillowcase tonight." He whispered conspiratorially as the little girl gave a cackle worthy of a cinema mad scientist.

He bent down to give his tiny blonde wife a kiss, she herself a simple five-foot-nothing, his shaggy gray hair falling across both their faces.

"The baby's awake, and hungry, darlin'." He said, planting another quick kiss on her forehead, more easily reached than her lips. Candy gave a smile and a wave, Aleda an understanding nod in return.

Aleda watched them discreetly, smiling wistfully to herself as they walked away, the twins trailing after them. They were such a happy family. Their youngest, Adrien, had been born here in camp. The fact that a heavily pregnant woman had made it so far, given birth safely, to a healthy baby… It was a sign of hope for everyone.

It was not often that she felt lonely. Her last leave had been a year earlier, her utensil of the night a dark haired Sergeant whose North Dakota accent had been intolerable, but who had been packing more than enough heat to satisfy her need not once, but twice that night. In the first month of her return to the States, the first month of the infection, there had been nothing but panic. Terror did a lot to stifle one's libido. In the month and a half since there had been the exodus from Benning, locating the logging camp, settling in the survivors, the raids to gather supplies, food, fortifying the camp. There had been things to do, responsibilities to take care of, children to look after, Walkers to be aware of.

She had had little time to think about the need of male company. A pair of double-A batteries were enough to keep her sated when the tension was simply too much, but the vibrator didn't talk, whispering horribly indecent things into her ear, didn't have lips to claim her own, hands to claim her body like they owned it.

But there were days now, when things were quiet and calm, when she had little more than chores to do, or the watch schedules to make, or making sure the latrines were cleaned by who had been assigned to clean them that she began to think about how nice it would feel to spend the night with a man again, perhaps even wake up beside one. How long had it been since she'd done that?

Opening her eyes and finding a tangle of warm limbs; soft, gentle, sleeping breaths brushing across her skin, a nice little morning surprise waiting between his legs just special for her. Being able to do nothing more than just reach out to get what she wanted. To be able to see that confusion on his face as his eyes fluttered open, closing again with a surprised moan as she worked him to full hardness. Having to do nothing more than roll over to have him inside of her again, falling asleep afterwards, returning to sleep held tightly with strong arms, the steady beat of his heart soothing away the outside world again.

She coughed, straightened, looked over to see Sophia watching her curiously. Inappropriate thoughts to be having with children around, she chided herself.

"Whatcha thinking about?" Sophia asked, tilting her head to the side.

Why did children have to be so damned observant?

"Just thinking about how happy your Mama's gonna be to see you, sweetcakes."

Sophia smiled brightly, her face brightening considerably.

"I missed her a lot, Miss Aleda. Thank you for finding Mr. Daryl and Mr. Rick."

Aleda smirked to herself, imagining what the tall, lean man would think about having been 'found' by her.

"I supposed we found each other, more than one or the other."

She smiled again as she thought about the man: Dixon, she reminded herself, his name was Daryl Dixon. There was something strangely familiar about him, something she couldn't pinpoint. No, certainly she had never met him before, she thought, she would have certainly remembered those eyes, but there was something, something interesting about him.

An unhealthy level of curiosity had forever been a character flaw.

"Tell me something, Little Miss."

"What?" The little girl smiled at her, brighter now than the entire time she had been here.

"Tell me something about Mr. Daryl."

She smiled even wider.

"He's nice. He doesn't talk much, and sometimes when he does he yells a lot, but he's still nice. He gave me a chocolate bar out of his backpack once, when they first joined the camp. He told me I could never tell anybody, and I promised I wouldn't. You can't tell him I told you." She said, the seriousness in her little voice comical as she gained a sudden, horrified expression.

She held up two fingers, a stern expression on her face. "Scout's honor. Who were _they_?" she tilted her head, inquiringly.

"He was with his brother when they first showed up. Mr. Daryl was driving a truck, and Mr. Merle had a motorcycle..." The child frowned for a moment, her forehead wrinkling. "I didn't really like Mr. Merle. He and Daddy were always putting this funny stuff in their nose, and then they would both be mean and loud all day."

"Did you ever see Mr. Daryl messing with the funny stuff?"

Sophia shook her head vigorously, hair flying outward.

"No. Mr. Daryl used to get mad about it. I know, cause I'd hear them yelling from their tent, and sometimes they'd come out the next morning all bruised and stuff, with their hands all bloody. One time Mr. Merle took his gun and hit Daryl in the face with it. He was bleedin' for a long time. My Mama tried to help him, but he just yelled at her, too. He acted like she scared him… but I don't know why anybody would be scared of my Mama. She's the best person in the whole wide world."

Aleda smiled again, amazed as she always was by the unconditional love of a child for their parent.

"Do you think Mr. Merle is going to cause problems around here?"

Sophia shrugged, looking down to the Barbies again.

"Mr. Merle is gone. I think they lost him in Atlanta. Mr. Daryl was really sad about it. He blamed Mr. Rick, and they got into a fight. Daryl tried to use his knife on him."

"His knife, huh?"

Sophia nodded. "He showed it to me once." She held up her little hands. "It's this big. He said it's called a Buck knife. I liked it, cause he always kept it all shiny and sharp. He even let me hold it, cause I told him I'd be really careful with it."

"So I guess he didn't hurt Mr. Rick, huh? If they were looking for you together?"

"No. Mr. Shane stopped him from doing it."

Her eyebrows raised.

"And who's this Mr. Shane?"

"He's Mr. Rick's partner. They used to be policemen, in a place called King County. That's where Carl and his Mama came from, too. Carl's my best friend." She said, with an affirmative nod.

"I bet you must miss Carl a whole lot, too, huh? You don't like the other kids in your group?"

Sophia shook her head again.

"I did, but they left. Mr. Morales and his wife took them away. They said they were going to Birmingham to find their family."

Aleda frowned softly. Dead by now, she thought. It had been hard enough making it across the state, let alone the state line, let alone a man, woman, and children by themselves. Sad, that.

"I'm sure they made it alright," Aleda said soothingly, reaching out to brush her hand over Sophia's hair.

The little girl frowned though, shaking her head.

"I don't think so. That's a really long way, and there are monsters everywhere."

She smiled sadly. There she went with that power of observation again.

"But," Sophia said, and Aleda could see it in her face, as she forcefully turned her thoughts away from her fallen friends. "My Mama says we never would have made it without Mr. Daryl. He likes to hunt. He always got a lot of little squirrels, and rabbits. Miss Andrea always complained about it, but I didn't think it was so bad. We were running out of food when they got there, and Mr. Daryl made this really good stew once, with all these roots he dug up in the woods, and the squirrel meat. He let me have four whole bowls of it." She said, as though it were a most uncommon occurrence. "Daddy got mad at me, cause he said I was being a pig."

Aleda frowned, wondering if it was so terribly wrong to be glad of Sophia's current lack of a father.

"He sounds like a nice man." Aleda said thoughtfully. "Useful, too."

"He is nice," Sophia repeated. "I like Mr. Daryl… He was never mean to me…" (like my father.) Aleda was certain she heard the words hanging in the air, unspoken or not.

"Why would anybody ever be mean to you, sweetcakes?"

She reached over, tickling her sides quickly, the little girl curling up and squealing. She didn't stop until the child was breathless, cheeks rosy, the shadow gone from her eyes now.

It should never have been there in the first place, she thought sadly.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note:

The survivor's settle into camp, and Daryl gets a nasty surprise at dinner.

As always, please forgive any typos. This chapter jumps around from past to present and back again, so you might have to pay a little more attention to figure out what's going on, and when. There's quite a bit of talking, too.

OOOOOO

It was… well… it was something he could get used to. There were a few other men down there, beside Rick, Glenn, T-Dogg, Shane, Dale, and Carl, but if you really thought about it, it was kind of like a giant, outdoor locker room, so_ he_ thought.

They had been instructed as to the 'protocol' of bathing, he still couldn't get over that one. That they were to do it 'Japanese-style' and wash and rinse first (each one of them had been assigned two buckets) higher on the beach, where the sand and the gravel and stones would filter the water as much as possible before the detergents ever got downstream, before a final rinse in the river.

"As I'm sure you've become aware, these are scent-based predators. What I have observed, however, is that they will pick up on an unwashed human quicker than a bleeding one. No offense, but if I can smell you lot from over here, I know damn well they can smell you miles from camp. In the same vein, you will be assigned low-scented soaps, shampoos, conditioners, and deodorants. Cologne and perfume are strictly forbidden."

Some men wore wife-beaters and boxers, some just underwear, and some simply didn't give a fuck to participate in any extra fumbling to do something as simple as wash, and went bareassed. Daryl considered himself one of the latter.

It felt good, god, it felt good on his naked body. Clean and cold, enough he felt crisped up like apple skin. It was deep in the middle, had been dredged to fill sandbags that formed the wall that was the only defense they had beyond the wire fencing. Nasty looking, he thought admiringly, floating lazily just beneath the surface, breathe held steady and eyes open. The sunlight cut through the trees in shafts, piercing the water. He thought they just might look like a light at the end of a tunnel.

"There's no towers down there, for privacy sake," she'd said, perched on the hood of a Humvee and surrounded by her 'squad' as she called them, 18 soldiers, 15 of them men, 3 of them women: Dasha, MaryAnn, and the Captain. "We have certain members got strict rules about the separation of men and women, and more so, we got plenty of women don't feel keen on being ogled, and got plenty'o'men of quite interested in it, so the washes are segregated. Men gonna get it all day Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Women on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Sunday is co-ed, women and children up until noon, men in the afternoon.

"_Nobody_ is to be down at the river _before_ the sun is up or _after _dark, _nobody_ is to be down there alone, and no one is ever to be down there _unarmed_. Whoever's carrying, you keep your firearm dry on the beach, and everyone, whether you carry or not, will carry a knife into the water with you, something long enough it's gonna pierce the brain when you go through the eye socket. Now, as for those of you who would prefer to wash every day, male or female, anytime you find the river empty, go ahead and yell on down 'fore you get in sight, respectful-like, and you hang an identifying garment up there at the top of the hill, and you go about your business. You got somebody you comfortable enough to bathe with, I got no rules against that, either."

She gave a pointed nod to the adults. Andrea probably smirked harder than any of them. Thinking about that pilot, he imagined, the one that had announced to him his name, and that he was from South Boston not soon after he'd entered the Blackhawk, as though somehow he'd given a fuck.

"Aengus Eadbhárd Murphy", he had said, shaking the hand of anyone who offered it as they stood amongst the tangle of traffic. "Now I imagine I don't have to explain why I'd prefer it if you'd just call me Murphy."

Lori had tackled the poor man soon after she let go of Rick, locking a tight hug around his neck.

"Thank you, oh god, thank you so much."

He looked distinctly uneasy, hands raised high above his shoulders.

"And you're more than welcome, ma'am, but your husband's standing but a few feet away with a big ass gun."

Lori had laughed, tears in her eyes as she stepped back. He had immediately turned to Andrea.

"Now, you on the other hand, _fionn_, I don' see a ring on your finger. Now why didn' I get a hug from you?" His eyebrows were arched, the flirtation obvious in his voice as he stressed the faint Irish lilt in his voice. It was hard to keep from laughing, watching her reaction just then. Chicks and accents, Daryl thought, it was pathetic.

Her face had been redder'n a summer tomato. But good for her, he thought, a moment later. Maybe she might stop being such a whiny bitch if she went ahead and got her some.

He surfaced slowly, taking a long deep breath, shaking the water out of his hair as he kicked his body upright.

She'd called them all together not soon after they had joined Lori, Carol, Glenn, Andrea, and Carl at the camp. Apparently the Asian had a hard-on for anything that flew, and Daryl was more than happy to give up his seat in the machine. Shane took his new car, Dale his Winnebago, Daryl his bike, and Rick drove Carol's Cherokee.

Mikey serving as navigator, the RV had been first. They found themselves in no more snarl-ups as Dale was directed by the man. The roads were not abandoned, but the cars and their sometimes present still occupants were on the sides of the road. Most looked as though they'd been pushed there, giant scrapes of metal-on-metal along their sides and bumpers.

They stayed on the back roads, never passing through a town, and finally came to the mouth of the logging road. The wind felt great, the gravel was worn down steady on the road, and Daryl heard Dale laughing at the top of his lungs through the open window as Daryl sped past him on the shallow shoulder, and took the lead again. He took the curves carefully, but for the full 25 miles it was good road, good riding, and be damned if he wasn't going to enjoy it.

"You'll be given provisions soon enough, but I want to speak to you about the rules and regulations that I expect you to adhere to during your stay here, however long it may be. I encourage you to stay, obviously. We have plenty of food, plenty of supplies, we can offer you medical care, we can offer you our protection. Not one of us in this line," she gestured outward, still in the cargo pants and sports bra, as earlier, he noted.

He'd felt a twinge in his chest as Shane had taken his eyeful upon first sight of her.

It had felt strangely like jealousy.

"Not one of us," she repeated, "has seen less than 3 years of active combat, and I can tell you it is much, much easier to bag the motherfuckers when they are _not _shooting back at you." She'd glanced among them, making sure her point was understood.

"However, if at any time you disagree with the things I ask of you, or disagree with the actions I take, then you are welcome to leave. At no time now or in the future will anyone prevent you from doing so."

She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts, long, thin fingers locking together, her elbows settled on her thighs as she leaned her weight forward, hands dangling between her knees.

He'd gotten an eyeful himself before he'd realized exactly where they had been directed. He looked away quickly, before anyone noticed, glancing quickly down to his crossbow, adjusting the strap needlessly.

"First, let me introduce myself to those of you I have not met." She gestured with one hand to her chest. "My name is Aleda Schweiger. I am… was a Captain in the U.S. Army. I've served my country for 14 years, now. Up until two and a half-months ago, I've been stationed in Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and most recently in between Iraq, Afghanistan, Dubai, and Bahrain. I came home to _this_," she gestured outward.

"Now," her hands pointed outward, pointing among them as though this were some sort of game for her. "I know some of you already. You are… Rick, yes?"

He nodded, smiling softly at her antics.

"That would mean that you must be Lori, and you Carl." She pointed to each in turn. They nodded, and she clapped her hands together, grinning.

"You are Miss Carol," pointing again, knowing obviously who the woman that little Sophia clung to was.

She smiled knowingly as she turned to him next, giving him an obvious once-over of her own, holding his gaze longer than he would have liked. Daryl frowned in response to the expression, for he'd been caught just as sure as a rabbit in a snare, but the smile only widened, no anger, only amusement in her gaze.

"You're Daryl. And you," she pointed to Shane. "You have to be Shane."

"Yes, ma'am," he'd nodded. "How exactly did you know?"

"Because, son, your hair looks like a spare wig from a 70's cop drama. You _reek_ of bacon," she'd smirked, and Daryl fought hard to keep the grin off his own face. "I betcha they didn't never send you out on no undercover operations, huh?"

The man had bristled.

"You got a problem with cops?" he'd asked.

The smirk widened into a smile.

"My Daddy was elected Sherriff back in Townsend, Tennessee when I was 10 years old, held his office for 14 years till his death, God rest his soul. I grew up in the precinct. Unfortunately for you, I'll spot a cop 300 yards off."

She turned away from him.

"You must be Glenn, and you Andrea." She pointed between the two of them. They both nodded.

"You are Dale, but you, I do not know your name," she pointed to T-Dogg, who responded in turn.

Her eyebrows arched tall.

"T-Dogg?" she asked. "What in the hell kind of name is T-Dogg?"

He shifted uncomfortably, before throwing his hands out.

"My name's Theodore."

She grimaced, drawing one knee up against her chest.

"You're right. T-Dogg is better."

She clapped her hands together.

"Now that we are all familiar with each other, we can move on. The very first thing I want to stress to you is: safety, and constant vigilance. You see something funny, and someone else has not, you spread the word. Even if you are not on the line, you are still on watch. We run three 8 hour watch shifts daily, 8 to 4, 4 to 12, and 12 to 8. We currently have nine towers, and if Mr. Dale agrees, we would like to make it ten, in that gap there." She pointed out the location, Dale nodding his acquiescence. "You can set up camp there, in that empty spot. Every group is expected to serve time on the line. Currently the only names on that list from this group are Dixon, Grimes, and…"she pointed to Shane.

"Walsh," he tilted his head.

"Those of you not currently on that list, and over the age of 15 will be tested, and eventually placed on said line. The schedules are made weekly, by the drawing of names, randomly. Obviously not everyone will get morning shifts just because they want to, nor will I force anyone to a constant night shift. Everyone will have their designated days off, and everyone will have their day on point, directing your own tower. What I want to stress to you is that _everyone_ should feel responsible for the safety of the people around you, strangers or not."

She paused for a moment, her expression settling into something much more serious.

"Secondly, I need you all to understand the flip side of safety. I need you to understand… that in this camp… if you get bit… you get scratched… you get blood in your eyes or your mouth… You will not receive medical care… you will not get food or water… we will not wait for you to turn. You will be shot."

Daryl saw Rick jerk, and Aleda saw it as well, for her gaze turned to him.

"There seems to be some among you who have a problem with that idea, but I am responsible for these people. There are 55 civilians in this camp, not including yourselves. Men, women, and children: their blood is on my hands, and I will not sacrifice the safety of the _many_ for the inability of the _few_ to accept the inevitable. That the infected are the infected, no matter if they are still breathing or not. Now, I want you to look over there."

She pointed to the left. A haphazard fence had been set up, two small plots of hallowed ground, handmade crosses staked upright in the grass.

"Why are there two graveyards?" Glenn asked uneasily.

"Because," Aleda began, straightening again, pointing to the farthest lot, "That graveyard is reserved for those that did not die of infection. So I want you to look at that ground, and know, that when I say, if you become a threat to these people, or a danger to this camp, I will kill you… you will know that they are not idle words. If you get it in your head that you can run this place better than I can? You look at those crosses, and you realize that you'd best just leave… because I guarantee you there is not a swinging dick in this camp that can do a better job than I can, have, and will continue to do, nor a one of them I will not take out to see these people safe. "

Her jaw was set hard, her expression resolute. Lori looked to Rick desperately, and Rick finally settled, stilling.

"Now… on to something a little less serious," she said with a sigh, rolling her shoulders to take the tension out of them, the muscles stretching from her neck standing out in tight cords.

Something in him wanted desperately to feel that tension melt away beneath his fingertips.

"You will be speaking with Corporal Vincenzo, soon." She gestured to a small man several feet away. "He's rude. You'll forgive him. He's from New Jersey. He serves as our quartermaster here, and will make sure that everyone gets no more, and no less than their fair share of provisions. You will meet him there next to those cargo containers. All provisions are kept inside under lock and key. Everyone is assigned an equal portion, and this ensures that it stays this way. Among the things that you will be issued is detergent, and fabric softener. Everyone is expected to do their own laundry on wash days.

"You wore the clothes, you dirty the clothes, you wash the clothes. You don't know how, you find someone to teach you. We don't have enough washboards and tubs to issue them individually, so everyone will have to share." She stopped for a moment, frowning, eyes rolled up as though remembering something in particular. "And the _first _motherfucker to open up their mouths and say 'woman's work' is gonna be picking their teeth up out the gravel _courtesy _of a woman's work." She glanced to them all, pointedly.

He saw Miss Carol grinning softly to his right.

"I think I'm gonna like her," he heard Andrea mutter to Dale.

OOOOOO

The cargo containers were filled to the brim, each designated for its own contents. Canned and dried food, vitamins and supplements, water by the bottle, by the gallon, by the jug, books and board games, medicine and medical supplies, female and male clothing, shoes, female and male hygiene products, bedding, pillows, car parts and batteries, tires, propane tanks, battery-powered lamps and clocks, one of them filled with nothing but batteries, thousands upon thousands of them.

Rick offered his hand to the Corporal, but he simply threw his up, clipboard and pen clutched in one.

"No. Too many of you'se, I ain't shaking hands all goddamn day. I already got all these intake forms to fill out, and I gotta do this shit all by hand, so let's just get this over with."

He led them through the containers one at a time, making note of each item they removed, and who took it.

"Where'd did you get all this stuff?" Lori asked Vincenzo as she, Andrea, Carol, and Sophia walked past them into the clothing container. There was new underwear, she saw, socks, bras, shirts, pants, pajamas, all folded neatly to take up the smallest amount of room, labeled and organized by size.

"There are five, six little towns within thirty or so miles o'here. We get it from houses, cars, grocery stores, pharmacies, convenience stores, bait and tackle shops, gun stores, doctor's offices, hospitals, strip malls, department stores. Anything ain't nailed down, and it's useful, we take it. We can find something to pry it up wit', we take that, too."

"There's beer in here… and liquor!" Glenn's voice echoed from one container over.

Vincenzo leaned over, popping his head in enough to give him a glare.

"And wine! Yeah, no shit Sherlock. You don't even think about it. It's in moderation only. Captain catches even one of you'se more than slightly tipsy and you're gonna be on latrine duty and knee-deep in shit for a week, you understand?"

Lori frowned, hands pausing as her fingertips brushed over a thin, silk nightgown. Something expensive, something like Rick would have bought her for an anniversary, or Valentine's Day.

"Don't you think it's wrong? Doesn't it feel like stealing?"

Vincenzo snorted, looking to her with a scornful curl of his lip.

"Who are we stealing from? Everybody's gone. They're still around, they're target practice. They're not thinking about where their jumper cables went, or why Monopoly and Battleship ain't sitting in the hall closet anymore. They ain't thinking at all. They're just eating machines. Stealing," he snorted again, turning and stalking out of the container.

OOOOOO

He dried his body and hair with one of the seven towels he'd been issued, and rinsed and rung out the one washcloth he had used out of the three he'd been given. Back in his tent, he had brand new linen and an extra mat on his cot, a good soft blanket, and a thick, firm pillow, fresh from the plastic, waiting for him. Miss Carol had made her way around camp, spraying down the inside of everyone's tent with a bottle of Febreze. Even his _tent_ smelled clean, today.

The breeze felt good on his clean-shaven face, and he'd done a decent enough job shaping up his beard even without the electric trimmer he used to use, back when there'd been such a thing. He grinned in his new mirror, ran his tongue over clean teeth, felt the smooth skin on his cheeks and neck with his hand as though it were the first time he ever had. The socks in his boots and the undershirt he wore were clean and without holes for the first time in weeks.

He'd dressed in the new pair of pants he'd chosen from the cargo container, a tan pair of Carharts that actually fit well (plenty o' pockets, had been his first thought) He didn't bother putting on another shirt, simply tucking in the thin, white undershirt. Too damned hot for sleeves anyway, he said to himself. He finished hanging the whole of the clothes from his rucksack to dry on the lines that had been strung all over the beach, and felt better in that moment than he had in months.

Scrubbing his shirts and jeans over the washboard had actually been hard work, and he found himself starving, grateful he'd washed clothes before he'd bathed. He, for once, would have been deeply disappointed to lose the clean and scrubbed feeling he had at the moment. He had a new level of respect for the women in the camp, having taken over that job thus far in their time as a group.

"Ain't so bad," Shane said, looking to Rick as he tied his boots on again, hair still wet, slicked back. Daryl laughed to himself. It kinda did look like a bad wig. He had the urge to ask Shane exactly where Hutch was.

"Know what you mean," Rick smiled broadly, rubbing a towel quickly over his hair before wrapping it over his shoulders, tucking a dark t-shirt into a pair of jeans, the first time Daryl had ever seen him wear anything other than that stupid uniform. He clapped the deputy's hat down on top of Carl's head, and Daryl had to admit the kid's grin was almost infectious.

"Oh my god," Glenn groaned. "I almost feel human again." He was without his cap for once, it too hanging to dry on the line.

The smell of cooking food came in waves from the camp as nearly every group and family began to cook dinner.

"I think we might make it all the way back, in just a bit, boys," Dale said, smiling.

OOOOOO

It was pathetic how his eyes sought her out immediately. Carol had her arms wrapped around her, hugging her as tightly as Sophia had earlier that day.

"I can't thank you… I can never, ever repay you for what you did for my little girl."

Aleda laughed, but Daryl thought she looked a little uncomfortable to be receiving so much praise for something that she seemed to look upon as simply her duty.

"You're welcome. She wasn't any trouble at all. Quiet as a mouse." She squeezed the older woman's shoulders, Carol wiping at her eyes.

Carol glanced over her shoulder, smiling to Daryl broadly, though he had no idea why, and turned back to the Captain.

"Now that all of us are washed up, you have to join us for dinner. It's the least I can do for you."

Aleda shook her head, an apologetic look on her face.

"I can't. It wouldn't be right. Everyone is assigned their own portion for a reason, no one gets more than anyone els—"

"I'd take it as a personal insult." Carol said, shoulders straighter than Daryl had probably ever seen them.

Aleda laughed helplessly, rubbing her hands over her face and then her hair.

"Alright, I'll tell you what. I got a couple weeks ration of beer cooling in the creek I haven't had a chance to get to. I'll trade you them for my portion of the dinner, how 'bout that?"

"Sounds fair to me," Lori said, smiling to Aleda.

"Some warm food and a cool beer sounds nice," Andrea nodded.

Daryl ran his hands back through his towel-rough hair hurriedly, never conscious of the movement, and felt vaguely like panicking.

He should have put on a shirt.

Jesus… she was coming for dinner.

OOOOOO

Author's Note:

The character of Murphy is an obvious reference to Murphy McManus, who Norman Reedus played in The Boondock Saints, which is a film I watch almost daily… especially since I have the Special Edition and there is a naked shower scene (nakednormanreedussquee!) on the Bonus Disk. I am such a perv. :-D Next chapter should be up soon! Be forewarned, it's going to deal with serious issues.


	6. Chapter 6

He'd had his empty rucksack in his hand for barely thirty seconds before a voice cut through his thoughts.

"Where are you going?"

He looked up, glowering at Dale.

"You interested in babysitting, best look at Carl and Sophia, old man, I don't need your hoverin'."

Dale held his hands up in front of his chest.

"Just asking. Stew's almost done, is all."

Daryl snorted, throwing the bag's strap over his shoulder.

"Just going to see whether my clothes are dry. I think I can manage to be back on time."

Meddlesome, he thought, as he made his way across the camp. He several times had the urge to ask exactly what in the fuck everyone was looking at, before the thought occurred to him that a new face in camp was bound to draw attention. He gritted his teeth, offered several nods which were returned cordially.

He bounded down the hill. Truth to be known, he'd been reluctant to leave the smell of the canned stew bubbling in the pot over the fire, but the sun was coming down quick. Much as he would have liked to break the rules for simple spite, cleaning a latrine dug for nearly sixty people held no appeal for him, nor did he believe for a second the Captain wouldn't make good on the Corporal's threat.

He rubbed the corner of a shirt carefully. Dry, mostly, it seemed, and he tugged it off the line, the clothespins snapping shut again as they finally let go of the fabric.

"You're gonna tear a hole in it, thin as that fabric looks."

"Jesus fucking Christ," he snapped, heart pounding.

The hole in the line of clothes he created revealed a naked form perched on a small wooden stool… a female form… one he recognized.

"Jesus," he said again, holding a hand up in front of his eyes, looking away desperately, desperately wanting to look back again. "Wasn't nothing at the top of the hill. Thought this was men's only today."

She smirked at him, he saw from the corner of his eye, running a soapy wash cloth over her arms and shoulders, lifting her wet hair to get at the back of her neck, the cloth moving down her chest and… Jesus, he was looking again.

He jerked his head to the side.

"Don't really bother me to bathe with the men. Most of 'em got sense enough not to stare. In this weather, I had my way about it? I'd walk around all day without a stitch… probably give half the camp a heart attack, though."

"You can say that again…" he muttered.

"What was that?" she asked, laughing, though the expression on her face said she'd most likely understood him.

"Nothin'. Look… I'm just gonna leave you to what you're doing."

She laughed again.

"Well… ain't you just the cutest thing. All concerned for my modesty. You blushing, son?"

He jerked his head back to snap at her, regretted it instantly as he noted the washcloth's progress down long, smooth legs, as leanly muscled as the rest of her.

Her gaze caught his, the grin on her face pure evil. She was doing it on purpose, the bitch.

"Now come on. Looking like you do? You tell me mine are the first pair o' tits you've seen, next thing you'll tell me is every woman in your town is as blind as a damned bat." She dropped the cloth back into the bucket with a splash, picking up the rinse bucket, carefully pouring it over herself. "'Sides. Something I wanna talk to you about. Now's a good a time as any. Where you from, anyway?"

He scoffed. He was getting a crick in his neck, turning his head back and forth so often. God, he wanted to look. Fuck it, he wanted to _stare_. He certainly did not feel that his new pants were fitting so well anymore.

"You usually have friendly chats buck-ass naked?"

"Anything about me strike you as bashful, Mr. Dixon?"

"Can't say that it does," he ground out. "Cobb County," he said finally.

"Ahh… Kennesaw Mountain Boy… Good on you."

He looked back to her again, found it impossible to look away this time as she dried herself at a leisurely pace.

She answered his question before he asked it.

"Daddy took me there once, see the Battlefield. Big on history, he was. Beautiful area."

It was hard to maintain his breathing. He noted, and cursed, a tremor in his hand as he raised it to wipe the sweat from his lip. He felt almost light headed. No surprise there, he thought angrily, trying discreetly to adjust the unwanted erection to some less excruciating position.

Fuck, the want alone was going to kill him. She stood, bending unabashedly to dry her legs next, his eyes locked on the gentle curve of her lower back, the swell of her ass beneath it.

Fucking tease, he thought, fucking _bitch_. She had no idea who she was dealing with. She'd regret it, she'd regret it if he got his hands on her, and how, _how _he wanted to get his hands on her.

"So, hillbilly, you carrying something other than that Horton with you?"

"What?" he bit out, and could not avert his eyes quick enough before she straightened, wrapping the towel around her.

"Any other weapon," she said slowly, as though speaking to a child. "You seem a little distracted there, son, something the matter?"

She was moving toward him, he saw, _stalking _toward him. He backed himself right into a tree before he realized she was reaching over his shoulder for the clothes that were looped over the low-hanging branches.

She laughed lightly, still far too close for comfort as she gathered the bundle of clothing to her chest.

"You 'bout as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, boy. Now I'd say I don't bite..."she smirked, tilting her head, a damp strand of hair falling across her face again, pink tongue snaking out to run lightly over her bottom lip. "But it'd be a lie."

He was on her before the thought even fully formed in his head, smashing his lips against hers. He tasted blood, but thought of it no more because he was tasting _her _as her lips opened beneath his, her hands wound so tight in his hair his scalp screamed, the towel, the clothing, falling, forgotten. His fingers dug into her back, dragging her close, grinding himself against her taut stomach. Even that small relief left him near tears.

She moaned into his mouth, locking one arm around his neck as she forced her hand between them. He released her lips, finally, hissing as she rubbed him roughly through the fabric of his pants. It was all he could do to keep himself from coming in that moment.

He flipped her quickly, slamming her back against the tree. He wondered for a second how badly the rough bark on her naked skin hurt, and dismissed the thought just as quickly as her free hand joined the other, tugging the wifebeater out of his pants, nimble fingers already working his fly open.

"Jesus… you don't waste any time." He muttered against her mouth, her tongue curling out to flick at his lips.

"Might be dead tomorrow. No time to waste," she whispered, hand finally slipping inside, fingers wrapping firmly around his cock as he nearly forgot how to breathe. "Mmmm.. and you good and ready. You want me… I want you… what else is there to talk about?"

She dragged his mouth to hers again, attacking with tongue and teeth as she grabbed for his hand. His fingers found her wet, scalding, the tiny nub of her clit hard and at attention as he worked his fingertips in circles around it, and she laughed breathlessly into his mouth as his length jumped in her hands.

She pulled back, still close enough that her lips brushed his as she spoke, the tone of her voice that of a command, one he was more than willing to follow.

"I want you to fuck me… till it hurts."

His palm slid up over her stomach, leaving a trail of moisture behind, between her breasts, wrapping around her throat and squeezing as he dragged their faces together again as her own hand finally worked him free of the fabric.

"I can do that," he growled.

"Daryl," she said, and again, "Daryl!"

"What!" he snapped, sitting bolt upright. Where... where the hell was he?

Lori had jumped back several feet as he reared up. A canvas chair… he was still in camp.

"I'm sorry I startled you. I didn't realize you'd dozed off. Makes more sense. I thought you were talking to yourself this whole time…" she gave him a strange look. "Carol says dinner's ready."

He rubbed at his face, clearing the sleep from his eyes, nodding quickly.

He could only imagine what he'd been saying.

OOOOOO

Author's Note:

Sorry, guys! This wasn't the original chapter 6 I was planning on, but the last couple of days have been really shitty... I had a fight and lost a friend, or at least someone who I thought was a friend, and I've been kind of bummed, so I figured a little bit of Daryl-smut would cheer me up.

The real nitty gritty stuff is coming up next time, as Aleda tells more about herself, and Shane insists on knowing exactly what happened at Benning.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note:

This chapter contains potentially offensive material. As always, please forgive any typos.

OOOOOO

Daryl heard her before he saw her, the clatter of glass bottles inside of a cooler, a sound that brought him back to simpler, quieter days, back before people started eating each other. Come to think of it, there'd never been a day like that, he thought, the expression had only become much more literal.

His guts twisted up as he caught sight of her, a fresh uniform, the rough salt of sweat and dirt gone from her skin, her damp hair lying around her shoulders. He nearly swallowed his tongue, straightening in his chair as he watched a strand of it stick to her cheek, looking behind her to check the progress of the cooler's wheels over the uneven ground.

"Our esteemed host has arrived!" Dale said, jovially, Aleda sending him a soft smile.

"Hi, Miss Aleda!" Sophia chirped loudly, the brunette nodding in her direction.

"Have I made you wait long?" Her voice was soft, husky, exactly as he remembered it from his dream.

"Not at all," Dale answered, motioning her in with his hands, despite the fact that Daryl's stomach had been growling for nearly ten minutes since Lori had woken him.

"I think you're a horrible liar." She smirked. She glanced in Daryl's direction, and he found himself caught watching her blatantly. She winked at him, quick enough he wasn't sure of what he'd seen, quick enough he was tempted to talk himself out of the sight.

"I apologize for the wait. I needed a bath myself."

"Completely understandable," Lori said with a big grin, fingers brushing through hair that had not been so clean in weeks.

"Well, I've spent enough time in my life packed in APC's with a dozen stinking, sandy men, and not smelling much better myself. I'm not doing it anymore. My happy ass is in that river every day."

She rounded the fire, setting the cooler back with another clatter, sinking onto the stump that was offered to her. She seemed quiet, calm and content in a way that Daryl had not seen her before. (Idiot, Merle whispered to him, you don't even know this bitch. Of course, you've never seen her this way.) She felt like a vacuum, black, dark space, something that sucked all the tension from him. He found himself wanting desperately never to lose that feeling again.

"Here you go," Miss Carol said quietly, offering her a bowl. She accepted it with a murmured 'thank you', but looked up from the bowl immediately afterwards.

"Honey, is this all you're having tonight? Didn't Vincenzo issue you cornmeal, flour, anything?"

Carol shifted sheepishly, and Aleda stood quickly, gracefully, setting the bowl beside the stump as she wrapped an arm around the woman's shoulders, as though she'd known her all her life. Daryl found that Carol had much the same reaction as he did around the woman, her shoulders relaxing.

"Have you ever used a Dutch oven?"

Carol shook her head apologetically, and Aleda grinned softly.

"I'll show you. Fire's burning hot. Shouldn't even take that long." She clapped her gently on the shoulder.

"Sophia, go and get it for me." Carol said, as the little girl nodded and jumped to her feet. She was so lively, Daryl thought, it didn't even seem like the same girl he'd observed these past months.

"Here, I'll help!" Carl was on his feet shortly after Sophia, galloping after her as Lori laughed. He hadn't let Sophia out of his sight since they'd been reunited.

Aleda laughed herself, looking to Lori.

"That's a little romance brewing right there. You gonna have your hands full in another year or two, Mrs. Grimes."

"Don't remind me," she answered, but Lori looked pleased to even be thinking a year or two down the line from this moment, Daryl thought.

"Well," Shane said, quietly. "If he's anything like his father, you won't have to worry about him and girls for another five or six years."

"Ha ha," Rick answered, flatly, Shane smirking at him in return.

"Well, he musta done something right," Aleda answered, jumping in the middle of the banter. "Don't see no ring on your finger, Walsh." She raised an eyebrow at him, that hateful smirk pulling at her lips again.

"Out of choice." He answered, a slight frown pulling at his.

"Oh yeah, that's what they all say."

Everyone laughed, including Shane, but not everyone noticed him balling his fists in the shadows, as Daryl did with narrowed eyes.

"Somebody wanna show me where you put your supplies at?" Aleda asked, Carol leading her to the small kitchen in Dale's Winnebago. She glanced over her shoulder. "Ya'll are welcome to the cooler. Crack you a cold one. Dinner'll really be ready, just a bit."

Daryl found that he beat everyone to the cooler, the prospect of a cool beer, not even a cold one, still too good to pass up. He recognized none of the labels. Löwenbräu, Erdinger, Franziskaner, Paulaner, Edelweiss, Hacker-Pschorr, Warsteiner, Spaten.

"Ah," he heard Dale say. "She must have found a specialty shop. She has good taste." He dug through the cooler carefully, withdrawing one whose water-logged label read 'Erdinger Weissbier' and offered it to Daryl. "Somewhat spicy. Suitably light in taste. Good introduction to German beer, in my opinion."

Daryl frowned a moment, tempted to take a random bottle simply out of spite, but took it, finally, nodding in thanks. Dale nodded in return, smiling to him, picking up a bottle of the one called Franziskaner, returning to his seat by the fire.

"What is this crap? Not even a bottle of Bud Light?"

"You choose your words carefully, Walsh, you talking about my taste in beer," Aleda answered, exiting the Winnebago with an armful. "And I'll have a bottle of that watered-down horse piss in my cooler over my dead, damned body." She knelt beside the fire, laying out her plethora of food products, oil, cornmeal, powdered milk and eggs, sugar. "You don't recognize good beer when you see it, guess you don't deserve a bottle." She said smartly, looking up to him as she leaned over and grabbed a few bottles, turning them in the firelight to read the label.

She chose the same pale, golden beer he had in his hand. She tilted the butt of the bottle toward him, grinning.

"Good choice, Dixon. Least somebody's got some taste around here."

Daryl shifted uncomfortably, but Dale never opened his mouth, much to the younger man's surprise, only smiled softly to himself.

Shane frowned deeply, finally choosing a bottle at random, Andrea slipping up behind him to choose a bottle of her own.

"Well, I'm open to trying new things," she gave a nod to Aleda, a murmured thank you, as Carol joined them with a bowl, measuring cup, and a wooden spoon. The children returned soon after, lugging the cast iron Dutch oven between them.

"Go ahead, set it right down here, edge of the fire." She pointed, tilting her head back, swallowing half the bottle in one long gulp. He watched the muscles in her throat move as she drank, found it nowhere near as distracting as the ecstatic and satisfied little 'Ah' that she let out afterwards.

The others filed past the cooler, either making a personal choice, or asking for a recommendation that Aleda was happy to give, complete with an explanation of whether it was top or bottom fermented, and what flavor overtones each brand held.

She reached out for the stick Dale had been using to poke at the fire, prying the stones in the circle apart, dragging out a bed of coals which she sat the oven upon, pushing it down firmly.

"You're lucky," she said, grabbing another quick swig of her beer, wiping carelessly at her mouth with the back of her hand before she picked up the mixing bowl. "This is about the only thing I can cook."

"Well, you can't do it all," Andrea laughed, sipping at her beer, glancing at the bottle appreciatively.

"It's true, much as I'd like it not to be. Mama tried to teach me how to cook, but she never had the patience for it. She used to get so mad at me. She'd tell me all the time, 'Mischling, Sie können Wasser brennen!' You could burn water!"

"Mischling… was that a pet name?" Rick asked curiously.

Aleda paused in her measuring to laugh, embarrassed, Daryl thought.

"It... uh…. It means half-breed… Mischling."

"That's awful," Lori said, aghast. "Why would she call you that?"

Aleda shrugged, returning to her measuring.

"It's what she always called me. Cause I wasn't full German, I guess. My Daddy was half-Cherokee, half-Scotch-Irish. She met him when he was stationed at Panzer Kaserne in Stuttgart… I don't think she ever had any intentions on marrying an American, but… Daddy loved her, and he knew… what he was… that he was an escape route. A last ditch retreat. She'd made it out of East Germany, left her mother behind… left with nothing but the clothes on her back, nothing but my Granddaddy's Luger… and his dagger… Blut und ehre. Daddy was a way out of Germany altogether." She gave a deep sigh.

"Blood and honor." Daryl looked up from his beer quickly, recognizing the only words he'd ever learned in German, learned from Merle.

Shane looked between them, chewing on his bottom lip.

"What was she running from?"

"He was a Nazi… your grandfather?" Daryl asked quietly.

"No… not just a Nazi. He was an Officer… in the Schutzstaffel."

"The SS?" Dale asked, a pained look on his face.

She nodded, leaning back to lift her shirt, the tattoo on her lower stomach a darker patch in the shadows.

"That's why I have this. People… assume the worst when they see it. But I don't wear it with pride. I wear it as a brand… the way they branded those poor people, like cattle, and led them off to the slaughter. My Grandfather… personally sent 4800 people to their deaths at Auschwitz and Bełżec, Kulmhof and Jasenovac, Majdanek, Sajmiste and Sobibor, Treblinka… Innocent people. Thousands of them."

"Jesus," Dale whispered softly.

"He hung for his crimes at Nuremberg. And afterwards, the people led my mother, and her mother, into the middle of town and cut them here… and here…" She ran a thumb from each earlobe, to either corner of her mouth. "So that everyone would know who they were… what they were. My mother was… 5 years old. She grew up an outcast, a known Nazi supporter… That's why she was the way she was. Mean and cold. Because they took it all out of her. What she did to me… I don't think she ever meant any harm by it. It was just her way. Daddy always called her the Ice Queen, when she wasn't around to hear… wasn't just because she had blonde hair and blue eyes."

She sniffed, ran a thumb at the corner of either eye quickly, returned her concentration to the mixing bowl.

"And the worst of it was… my grandfather was not an evil man. He held no particular hatred for anyone. He only wanted to see Germany return to its rightful place in the world, and he believed wholeheartedly that the Fuhrer would be the one to do it. He was just… a good soldier… following orders. Just like me. He was a living example… That… 'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil-'"

Daryl heard other voices join hers, Shane's, Rick's, Andrea's.

"Is that good men do nothing." They finished together.

"Edmund Burke." Andrea said softly.

Aleda nodded solemnly, looked down as she poured the batter, sizzling, into the oven.

"My Grandfather… his life… they are the only reasons I am here today… that these people are here today."

"What happened there… at Benning? What happened?" Shane whispered urgently.

"It isn't to be spoken of. There are children here, and they've heard enough horrible things for the night." Aleda answered stiffly.

"No," he shook his head, drew his feet under him, knees closer to his chest, forgotten beer spilling sideways as he wiped at his mouth.

"Shane-" Lori began.

"No!"

"She doesn't want to talk about it, Shane." Rick hissed.

Her hands shook. She dropped the bowl quickly, gathering them into fists to stop the motion.

"Well, she'd better get over it. We have a right to know, god damn it."

"What do you want to know!" Aleda yelled. "Do you wanna know about the orders _I _was given? The choices that I made?"

"How many innocent people did you kill?" Shane bit out. "I saw them… at the hospital. The Army… They were shooting people, _people_, not Walkers! How many did you kill!"

"Seventy-five!" Aleda screamed, the tears standing in her eyes finally sliding down her cheeks, her jaw quivering. "Is that what you want to hear? How they shot the children first? Because they screamed the most? Made better bait for the freaks? Or what it was like watching toddlers crying, pulling at their parents, begging them to get up… Not old enough to know they weren't ever getting up again? You wanna know… what it was like, putting my knife through my CO's throat, listening to him gurgle, drown in his own blood? What it was like to shoot my _brothers_? Men I'd known, and fought beside for years? You wanna know what it was like to see that look in their eye, the betrayal, when they saw who took them down? Is that what you want to know!" She screamed, kicking the Dutch oven over into the fire.

Carol jerked, Sophia cowering next to her. Carl let out a sob, Lori hanging onto him for dear life as Aleda made it to her feet, a full bottle of beer barely clipping Shane's head as he dodged to the side, crashing into them.

"You stupid bitch!"

They were going for each other, Daryl saw that, everyone saw that as Shane made it to his own feet, lunging forward. Rick nearly did not reach him in time, but Aleda was ready, the switchblade in her hand again. She pointed it at him, whole body shaking, the blade vibrating with the force of her tremors.

"You have no right! You have no right, to talk about things you have no idea of. These people are here because of _me _because I made the decision to become a traitor, to stop following orders. They told us to save the Fort at all costs, to remove the threat… the civilian threat. The Major told me, he said, I either follow my orders, or he would shoot me. So I killed him first… and I gave them _all_ a choice. To save the civilians or die. Everyone that said yes, lived… everyone that said no, _I shot them_. You have no idea. You walk in here now, after the battle is done, and you make your assumptions about me. You have no right!"

He opened his mouth, but it was Lori's voice that spoke.

"Shane! For once in your life, SHUT UP."

He gritted his teeth, but Aleda did not wait for his words, turning on her heel, and stalking off, the cooler left behind.

"Get the hell off of me!" He screamed at Rick, and his partner finally did let go, staring at him as though he had never seen him before. Shane wiped at his eye quickly, the rivulet of blood that snaked down where the bottlecap had split open his eyebrow.

He jerked away from Rick, away from them all, stomping off into the shadows himself.

They sat in stunned silence, all of them, all of them but Daryl. He had only half an idea where he was going.

He was going after her.

OOOOOOO

Author's Note:

Next chapter, Daryl and Aleda have a personal chat.


	8. Chapter 8, Part 1

Again, he heard her before he saw her, recognized the thud of human flesh and bone crashing against metal, recognized the shrill hiss of a scream held back behind teeth. He found her leaned back against the door of one of the cargo containers, her right hand cradled against her chest, the trails of her tears cutting swathes of reflected firelight down either side of her face.

She jerked, defensive, as he rounded the corner, not relaxing as he drew closer.

"What the fuck do you want?" she growled at him, but he didn't answer, and eventually she let out a rough breath, digging into her pocket, a ring of keys coming out with a jingle. She struggled with them, damaged fingers not cooperating, the ring falling to the ground lamely as she cursed.

He bent to grab them, saw her body gain the stiff alertness of defense again, even as he completed his task, and straightened, looking up from the keys.

"Well, say it. You been looking like you wanted to say something smart all day. Now's your chance. Ain't you got something to say about how stupid it is to hit something you can't even hurt?"

But he knew, he knew the thought behind it, or rather the lack of one, the simple fact that physical pain personally dealt was easier to deal with than anything in one's head could be, had gotten more than one of his own wounds because of it.

"Gonna do anything more than piss you off?"

"No," she grated, and he saw it, the wavering in her posture, the frantic need of tired muscles to relax, the unwillingness to allow it.

"So what's the point? You mad enough, ain't you?" He answered quietly, the keys rattling again as he turned them over in his hand, looking up to meet her gaze finally.

She watched him uneasily for a moment more before he watched her posture release, relax, reaching up with her left hand to wipe, annoyed, at her own tears.

"Which key is it?"

She shifted again, half-tempted to jerk the keys back out of his hand, he thought, before she looked down, running a thumb carefully over knuckles that were already bruising black, oozing blood.

"The one with the X on it."

She sniffed again, looking away, but he found the fact she had not lashed out at him yet encouraging, and concentrated on discovering the key in question, the tiny black X a raised mark on the surface, finding it with his fingertips before his limited sight did in the darkness. It slipped into the industrial lock and turned, easily, the mechanisms well-oiled, for the lock did not appear new to him, gouged and scratched as it was. He pulled the lock out of the latch, stepping back from the door as he pulled it open.

There was a quiet screech of metal on metal as the door released, a curious head poking over the edge of the container, disappearing just as quickly as the Captain looked up, expression still stormy.

She slipped past him, right hand still drawn against her chest as she dug around in the dark, already sure of the location of her quarry, he thought. He heard the ring of glass, and saw her sink deeper into the shadows.

"You smoke?" Her voice was so quiet, the question so absurd that he almost dismissed the sound before her limpid eyes met his, little more than a glimmer in the darkness.

"I used to. Stopped a few months ago."

She laughed, tiredly, he thought.

"I started a few months ago." There was a pause, another sniff, before her voice sounded again. "What kind?"

"Marlboros," he shrugged, confused by the question before a long thin box hit him in the chest, the red and white packaging of the carton still familiar. He caught it quickly, looking in her direction again as the shadow of her form drew closer, dissolved into something more human. The glitter of glass came from her left hand.

"Would you like to have a drink with me, Mr. Dixon? I do so… _hate_ getting trashed alone."

"Thought we was only to drink in moderation?"

She laughed again, glancing thoughtfully at the bottle before looking up to him again.

"I think you'll be amazed how easy it is to break the rules when you're the one making them. You get tore up, you think it's gonna make you feel any better… I know it will me."

He nodded, conceding the point, pushing the container door shut as she slipped out to stand beside him.

"Lock it back," she whispered, more from weakness of voice than an attempt at quiet. "Follow me."

He found it easier to simply obey, found her relaxing more as he did so, knew it was the right response, and knew how rare it was that he ever came up with that.

She waited for him, he saw from the corner of his eye, half-turned away from him, looking back over her shoulder as the lock slid home again. He fell into step with her, shocked at how easy it was to match the rhythm of his strides with hers, wondered if everything would be so easy with her, if he could only find out.

He glanced down at the ring of keys in his hand, looking up only to make sure he still followed behind her. They wound their way through tents, precisely, passed by a large canvas tent with several of her soldiers outside of it. She didn't sleep with the others, it seemed. She kept walking, slowing only as they approached the farthest edge of the camp. The tent was surrounded by empty space, flanked by another cargo container, her only neighbors the men and women on watch atop it, the only tent exposed to so much open length of the wire fencing. He could not decide whether it was bravery, stupidity, or a lack of worry that accompanied a lack of caring. Perhaps she thought it fitting that she would likely be the first to go down if the perimeter broke. He heard the quiet whine as the zipper on the tent's flaps opened, a different whine altogether coming next, accompanied by a quiet huff of breath against the hand that still held the keys.

"Where did you come from?" The dog looked up at him calmly, whining again, sitting nearly on his feet as the big block-head of the male Rottweiler knocked against the ring, wedging itself beneath his hand.

He knelt slowly, tucking the carton of cigarettes beneath one arm, offering the hand which was met by more snuffling, the dog finally snorting and throwing over 100 pounds of muscle and bone into Daryl's side. He laughed quietly, shifting to maintain his balance on his knees, wrapping a careful arm over the dog's shoulders, scratching the broad chest. There was more movement in the darkness, the sleeker head of a female poking into view. They were both attached to a zipline between two trees, he registered as his sight adjusted to the gloom, two big bowls of kibble and water not far from the tent.

He looked up, found her watching him, curiously.

"Think this is the first live one I've seen…" he said quietly, glancing back down to the dog.

"You just haven't been around camp long enough," she answered, voice closer than he expected as he looked again, found her directly beside him. He wanted to startle at her sudden closeness, found himself stilling instead, more as she knelt down beside him. The female moved closer with the jingle of a collar, Aleda planting a solid kiss on the proffered snout.

"They yours?"

She nodded, hugging the female's neck firmly even as she flopped sideways, dragging Aleda with her as she laughed, one shoulder on the ground, the other twisted into the air. He smiled softly to himself.

"Had left them with a friend. Thought I could trust her to watch them… but she was gone, when I got there, and them almost dead of thirst… and heat. Found her, not far from the house, dead and walking… Abandoned them for no reason… She didn't make it, regardless. Might've, she'd kept them with her. They saved me more times I can count in the beginning… They don't get it, you know… the animals… they don't get the fever." She looked back to him before straightening. "They can… eat the bodies… and still not catch it."

"What's their names?"

"Engel and Dämon."

His lips quirked once more, struck again by how clear, how blue those strange eyes were this close, even in the dusk.

"Angel? And Demon?"

She nodded, the first smile he had seen on her face thus far pulling at her lips.

"He doesn't seem so bad."

"You don't know him. But he seems to know you."

"What do you mean?"

Her gaze was hard to break, and he did so with reluctance, glancing down to the dog, Dämon, again.

"I've never seen him let a man touch him before."

He looked up at her words, back into her eyes again.

"He was scheduled to be euthanized, when I found him… because of how aggressive he was. Scared of everyone, and everything, wanting to attack anyone that got too close… but especially men. They fought him, against Pit Bulls for profit, against smaller animals… for fun… They beat him, to make him mean, let a chain collar grow an inch into his neck because they didn't care. He was underweight, starved, sick with infections, deserved love for all he had been through, but they were going to kill him. I paid a lot of money to see them lose his paperwork… but I could never trust him around men, or any other animal but Engel. He tries to kill them. That tells me something about you, Mr. Dixon, to see him trust a stranger."

It was she who broke the contact between them, looking away as she stood slowly, slipping away from him into the tent's interior. His fingertips gently found the scarring around the dog's neck, the great head lolling along with its great tongue as he scratched gently around it.

"What do you see?" he asked the animal, voice barely raising above a whisper, but got no more answer than the rolling of eyes, the calm brown gaze seeking its master.

He looked up again as the tent brightened beyond his gaze, a lamp turning on within, and found himself unable to look away as she toed her boots off, the tan shirt pulling over her head, the whisper of the fabric of her pants as they slid over her hips and to the ground. She kicked them aside, carelessly, and he wanted to feel the muscles beneath the skin of her thighs moving beneath his hands, wanted to do more than watch them.

She began to look at him, averting her gaze just as quickly as she found him still watching raptly. He saw her tongue dart out, wetting her lips, nervously, he dared to think. She disappeared from view, and he heard more fabric moving before she returned to sight, having pulled on a gray pair of shorts not much bigger than the underwear they covered.

"You can come inside," she said, the fingers of one hand running along the open zipper, only half of her face visible past the tent flap, and his tongue found his own lips dry and rough as he stood slowly and answered her quiet beckoning.

He drew very close, and for a moment he realized how much smaller she was, the top of her head reaching only to his chin. She looked up at him, had to look up to meet his eyes, and he could feel her breath against his lips, could smell the sweetness of it as she finally spoke, backing away.

"Close it behind you."


	9. Chapter 8, Part 2

Author's Note: It seems I've made the story a little too Aleda-centric thus far, so I'm making an effort to work back in the opposite direction. This part, Aleda challenges Daryl to do something he never does: talk about himself. Next part, we'll see some memories of Daryl through his own perspective. I just pray that I do his character justice. *crosses fingers*

OOOOOO

She'd zipped the room divider shut in the center of the tent, leaving them in the front portion of the structure, taken up by two collapsible chairs, nothing else save area maps tacked to the tent's walls with safety pins and a small bookcase made out of milk crates. He had to laugh a little as he looked at it.

"Books… the world's over, gone to shit… and you bring… books."

"Hilarious… laugh it up, asshole," but there was no heat in her voice, a tiny smile on her face as she opened a small plastic tote on the ground nearby and withdrew two plastic cups. "You… pack strange shit… when you're panicking. I'm grateful for it now. Ain't exactly got cable up here."

"Never been much on books… But I can tell you that it took me about three weeks to realize I'd packed my DVD remote in with my clothes, day we left for Atlanta."

He gave her a small smile, head tilted as he looked at her sideways.

"But hey, at least you had an extra set of batteries you didn't know about." She laughed.

He nodded, shrugging.

She laughed, sinking into the canvas chair wearily, and pulled over one of the milk crates to place the plastic cups on.

"Three fingers, oughta start us off."

She offered the first cup to him, and he accepted it with a nod, lifting it to his mouth. He smelled the strong woody warmth of Wild Turkey, and began to laugh again. She raised an eyebrow at him, capped the bottle after she poured the second cup.

"You don't cut any corners, do you?"

"I don't demand that anyone else does, either. Some… semblance of normality, some reminder of the way life used to be… That's how we're going to get these people through this."

He took a quick gulp of the bourbon, savored the burn before he swallowed it, saw her take a shot of her own, lips pursed as she blew out afterwards.

He laughed again, and wondered if he could honestly be that buzzed from one beer, even on an empty stomach.

"You're laughing at me. I think you're a little bit of an asshole, Mr. Dixon," she smirked at him, arms crossed over her chest, right hand on top of her left arm.

"If you're trying to hurt my feelings, you're gonna have to try a little harder. Merle, boy, when he got to cussing me… he'd call me everything but a white man."

She shifted, lifting the cup to her mouth again, draining it. She tilted the bottle toward him, and he nodded, swallowing his remaining portion quickly and holding out the cup to be filled. The portion was a little closer to four fingers this time.

"Speaking of… asshole…" he grinned, and he felt it, the warmth, the flush in his face, the alcohol already coursing through him. "If he never lets men near him… how'd you know he was gonna trust me? How'd you know he wasn't gonna eat my ass alive?"

The grin was pinched: she was trying hard not to reveal it.

"Honestly, I was hoping one or both of them would bite you. Give me a good excuse to send you on your way."

He scoffed, glowering at her.

"Thanks, honestly."

She smiled, however, in response.

"But you seem to have passed Dämon's test… I was starting to have second thoughts… but maybe this isn't a mistake, hmm?" She tilted the cup toward him, and the plastic rims tapped lamely together, both of them laughing at the less than impressive effect, before they both took another drink.

Her eyes looked sleepy, slanted already, and she took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment as she rolled her shoulders, turning her head from side to side with a series of cracks.

He gnawed on his lip for a moment, before finally forcing the words out.

"Are you alright?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" she answered, but she did not meet his eyes, staring at the bottom of the cup.

"Because what he said wasn't right." He said quietly, tilting his head back and draining his cup again. He felt warm, as though his entire body was vibrating, the exhaustion sinking into something smaller, something easier to bear, knowing he would sleep soundly tonight, comfortably, safely.

"I don't want to talk about it. Not what he said, and not what I said. I'm tired of talking." She looked down, rolling the red cup between her hands. She looked as though she were fighting a battle within herself. She seemed to lose it. "You share his opinion? I'm a murderer?"

She looked up at him, tentatively, as though afraid to meet his eyes.

He shrugged, reaching out for the bottle which she passed to him. He poured himself another shot, reached for her cup, doing the same to it.

"Sounds like you did the right thing, to me… in my opinion. Not that it matters much," he added quietly, passing her cup back to her.

"Why wouldn't it?"

He looked up at her quickly, surprised despite himself.

"What?"

"I said… why wouldn't it matter? I asked you a question, of course your opinion matters. If it didn't, I wouldn't have asked for it."

He looked up, meeting eyes that held a determined intensity.

"Why are you with them, anyway?"

He stopped, red cup halfway to his lips.

"With… the others?"

She nodded, and he could do little more than shrug lamely.

"Tell you the truth? I've got nowhere better to go."

She lifted her feet off the ground, heels tucking under her ass, knees shifted to the side as she took another leisurely sip.

"You have any family out there?"

He shook his head slowly.

"Parents are dead. No aunts, uncles, cousins I was ever close to… My brother and I made it out of the County… but… I don't know where he is now. I wanna believe he's alive…and at the same time…" He stopped, clamping his jaw shut.

"What is it?"

But as hard as he held his teeth together, the words came out in a torrent, like a gout of blood from a severed artery.

"And… at the same time… I hope he never comes back. Because for the first time in my life… I feel like I've.. got a chance at a... a life of my own. The day Rick got to the camp… there was so much… anger, and fear, but then… relief. No more being Big Brother's keeper… No more being second best, second choice." He clamped a hand over his mouth, pulling it away quickly.

He shook his head, lips pressed into a thin line.

"I shouldn't be talking about this with you. Oughta be ashamed… even thinkin' that way."

"Why?" she asked simply.

"It's… it's family. You're a stranger."

She shrugged, conceding the point, swirling the bourbon in the bottom of her glass.

"Sometimes strangers are the best ones to talk to. Everybody needs somebody to talk to."

"I'm not much on talking."

She smiled softly, looking up at him again.

"So I've been told."

He frowned, looking back to her.

"What's that supposed to mean? They already talking shit about me, first new face they see?"

She watched him for a long moment before she spoke.

"You don't really trust them, do you? The others in your group. You're… separate from them. What I can't figure out is whether it's by your choice or theirs."

He frowned deeper, the plastic cup crumpling a little beneath his grip.

"I'm not like them. I'm…"

"You're what?" she pressed.

He shook his head, gritting his teeth together so hard she heard the grind of it.

"Just trash…" he whispered. "Ignorant, backwoods trash. Never… made it through high school… worked as a roofer, framer, demolition, landscaping, just a blue-collar wage slave, anything to make a buck. I've run… meth, cocaine, bud, moonshine, guns… And here I am, all of a sudden, with… cops… lawyers… families, good people… Then there's me."

He wanted to look away from her, wanted to leave now as desperately as he'd wanted to enter before.

He heard the slurp as she took another drink of her bourbon, a slight slur to her voice when she spoke next.

"That's about the biggest pile of bullshit I've heard fall out of anyone's mouth lately."

He frowned deeply, a shock of anger coursing through him, fueled by the waves of his approaching intoxication.

"Fuck you. What do you know about me?"

She laughed, not taking the offense he'd seriously meant.

"I don't know anything about you. See, that's the thing. I don't have to. I've watched you, observed your actions, and your reactions… I've heard about you from the Little Miss… I've heard about you from Dämon. Those are the things I've built my first impression upon."

She took another shot quickly, shaking her head and lolling her tongue for a moment.

"You're a capable fighter, that's obvious to me if you've made it this far. In the same vein, it tells me you are calm when things fall to shit. I see that you… you're a lot like me. You don't need protection, you don't need someone to feed you, or clothe you, or house you. If we wanted to, we could leave out tomorrow, and make it perfectly well on our own. Sometimes I think it's the best course of action. Sometimes I think… they're just a burden, and I'd be better off alone, because… I don't _need _them… But the sad fact, Mr. Dixon, is that we _do_ need these people."

"No, I don't." He shook his head, resolutely.

""And God said, It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a help meet for him.' Genesis 2:18…"

"God... just my luck, a bible-thumper." He groused, closing his eyes for a moment.

She laughed, and it was not the response he had wanted.

"Humans are a pack animal, Mr. Dixon… The phrase 'lone wolf' came about… because wolves aren't meant to be alone. As much as we hate to admit it… we do need these people. Our humanity is all that separates us from those freaks… Community, friendship, caring, love… These are all things that are necessary for a happy, healthy, sane human… Whether you like it or not."

He opened his eyes again, found her watching him, head tilted softly.

"They need you, too, despite what you may think."

"I don't see how," he muttered, the cup nearly crumpling in his grip again.

"You've got an automatic denial for everything, don't you? You just can't even begin to imagine that there's anything worthwhile about yourself, can you?"

He glared at her.

"Why don't you just… back the fuck up. The last thing I need is you trying to get in my head, with your psychobabble horseshit. You think you know what you're talking about—"

"Because I do." She interrupted. "I'm trained… to observe people's behavior, their reactions, facial expressions, body language, what they say and how they say it. You think somehow you're immune to that?"

"No... you were right. This was a mistake. You don't know me," he repeated, taking the last gulp of bourbon, regretting it as his throat locked down, refusing to swallow. He choked, nowhere near as quietly as he had intended, setting the cup down with enough force to crumple it for the last time, turning and heading for the tent's door.

"Maybe I want to," came the quiet whisper from behind him. He stopped, looked back reluctantly, wanted, wanted with everything in him to cling to his outrage, to forget her altogether. "Somebody's hurt you, haven't they? You're just like a wounded animal… you need care, want it, but you keep lashing out… because it's all you know, isn't it?"

"I'm not gonna listen to this bullshit, or sit here and look at your fucking, pathetic puppy dog eyes. You think I'm some little alley cat you're just gonna take in. I'm a grown fucking man. I don't need you, or your help. And why? Why of all people you gotta bother _me_?"

"That is a very good question. I've had to think about that for a few hours myself, today. I think I've figured it out though," she scratched carelessly at her knee, looking back up to him, lips quirking as she thought of her next words. "You… you remind me of home, Mr. Dixon. I haven't been home in… more years than I can count. I wake up sometimes… and I think… I'm never going to leave the country again… probably never live long enough to even make it out of this state. I'll never see the hills, or the mountains, the streams or the valleys… Never see the mist rising in the morning, in the evening. Never watch the laurels blooming again. And then I meet you… and for the first time in years… I feel like… maybe I'm there. I'm somewhere close."

He had no response to that, shifted uncomfortably where he stood, turning to face her finally.

"And I've figured it out. I know what it is. You're just like the guys I used to run with in high school. Buncha… smart ass, trouble-making hicks, just like I was… And… to tell you the truth… You remind me of my Daddy." She smiled at him.

"If you were talking about _my_ Father, that'd be one hell of an insult." He muttered, and looked back to the chair he had vacated, found it too awkward to return to it.

"My Father was a good man. He was rough, just like you, but good as gold on the inside. He'd do anything in the world for the people he cared about… but he never wanted person one to know he cared about a goddamn thing. I see... so much of him in you. It's… comforting… I find myself not wanting to lose that," she finished, voice little more than a whisper.

"You've got it all wrong… You don't know me," he repeated, closing his eyes again, as though if he squeezed hard enough he could make it all disappear, the tent, her, the whole world beyond it.

"But I've watched you, and the reactions people have to you. Grimes, he trusts you, that's obvious enough to be seen. Miss Carol favors you. Little Miss Sophia says that without you, your group wouldn't have made it this far. And Dämon? Well, just the fact that he seems to think you're worthy of petting him gives me a high opinion of you."

"You're making your decision based on a dog… and a kid." He looked at her skeptically, the disdain clear in his expression.

"You're damn right, I am. Because I'll tell you about animals and children. They are without bias, without prejudice, and Miss Sophia? She is without guile. She has not learned to lie. She has nothing to gain by doing so, but she stands to gain my trust if she tells me the truth, and she knows this. Children and animals… they see people, as they really are, what they are underneath, what they hide from the world. They know the truth about people, without that person ever uttering a word. I will take the opinion of a child, the reaction of an animal? I will take those over the statement of an adult, any day."

He stood still, remained where he was. She shifted, feet slowly lowering to the ground, and he startled as her fingertips found the palm of his closest hand. He stared at it, as though it wasn't real, as though it might bite him. She paused, and he did not move, and she grew braver, slipping her fingers across his palm and through his fingers, tugging gently on his arm, her palm rough and callused, but warm, solid, real, her grip growing firm and unyielding the longer he allowed the contact.

"Talk to me a little while longer… Tell me about yourself, Daryl," she whispered his name, and he thought it was a sound he could listen to forever.

He found himself hating her for it.


	10. Chapter 8, Part 3

Author's Note: I apologize to anyone who was unfortunate enough to read the unedited version. *embarrassed look* I got a sudden burst of inspiration when I got home from work, but by the time I had finished, I was half-brain dead and my sleeping pill was kicking in. I made some ugly mistakes. I've gone back and fixed hopefully all of them.

My Daryl-muse wasn't terribly cooperative, and would only tell me a little, so there isn't as much backstory in this chapter as I had originally planned. My apologies for that, as well.

This chapter has warnings for graphic language and graphic situations of the 'kissy-kissy sexy-sex' kind (as Norman Reedus would say). Warnings for power play, hints of knife play, dirty talk, and drunken sex.

OOOOOO

She did not let go, as much as he wanted her to. She stared at their hands, fingers intertwined and locked together, her other hand reaching out, wrapping around the back of his. She swallowed, looked embarrassed, but still did not release him.

"You have nice hands," she said, after a moment, turning his hand over in her own, running her fingers from his wrist down to his fingertips. He stifled a shiver, pressed the energy into a look of contempt.

"They're beat to shit, always have been."

She smiled softly.

"Working man's hands. Men are 'sposed to have scars, less they some pussy little city boy. Shouldn't be ashamed of them. You got any idea what it's like for a woman, have hands like that run all over them?"

He scoffed again, tried to pull back but did not press the issue as she ignored the movement, turning his hand over again, running her fingertips over his knuckles. In the lamplight, he saw her own hands were not much different, the knuckles mottled with white and pink scarring, her right hand puffy and bruised.

"Like fucking sandpaper. Believe me, I've heard enough complaints."

She laughed.

"That's your problem then. You must have a taste for them delicate little bitches, don't you?"

He glared at her, but she met the offended expression with a shit-eating grin.

"You like making assumptions," he grumbled, but he followed her movements this time, let her tug him close enough again to return to his seat. She let go of him finally, squeezing his hand hard as though she did not want to let go. He sat reluctantly, staring at his boots. "Being as you don't know shit about me."

"Well, it's a logical conclusion. You see? A real woman? She knows what to look for. Big, rough hands like that? Do make you feel delicate… make you feel like you're… made o' glass, like he could tear you to pieces with those hands if he really wanted to."

"Why the hell would you want that?" He thought of his mother, how truly small and delicate she had been, how easy it had been for her to bruise, to bleed, how she could barely get one injury healed before he put another one on her body. Dinner was too hot, or too cold, she was talking too much, Merle and he were making too much noise… Daryl was in sight at all. The reasons were myriad, and sometimes he didn't need a reason. Sometimes he just liked to hurt her.

"It's the dichotomy."

"The what?" He drew himself out of his thoughts quickly, thoughts he didn't want to have in the first place.

He waited for it, for the look of disdain, but she only smiled at him, looked more than overjoyed for him to ask the question at all.

"The contrast. Like… leather and lace. His roughness makes you feel soft, desirable, like a real woman. His strength makes you feel—"

"Weak?" Daryl cut in, another frown pulling at his lips.

She laughed at him, and he bristled at the sound of it.

"Weak? No, my strength is something I pride myself on. Makes it that much more important to me that the man I'm with is stronger. I wanted someone soft and delicate and gentle? I'd be with a woman myself. Any woman that's got any sense feels the same way. You're gonna do well for yourself, here."

He shook his head, glowering at her, annoyed.

"What in the hell are you babbling about?"

"With the women. I give it about a week, then you gonna have ten or twelve of 'em trailing after you like a hound on a 'coon." She grinned.

"They that damn desperate around here?" He arched his brows, and it was she that shook her head this time.

"Vincenzo didn't issue you a mirror?"

"What the hell's that got to do with anything?"

She smirked, tilted her head and he swore he could feel it, as she lazily ran her gaze across him, drunk enough to be unable to disguise it, or drunk enough not to care, he did not know.

"Cause apparently you ain't looked in a mirror lately. I hate to tell you, son, but you as fine as fucking frog's hair."

"Now I know you're drunk. Ain't never seen no hair on a frog, cause they ain't got hair." Stupid bitch, he added to himself.

Her grin was ear to ear.

"Course you ain't never seen it. Cause it's so damned fine."

He laughed, the sound tearing out of him before he ever had the chance to suppress it. She grinned at him again.

"You oughta laugh more. Smile more. You got a beautiful smile… makes your eyes light up. And you got yourself some beautiful blue eyes, boy. I noticed all this I first met you, but boy… you stop a bitch in her tracks now. You clean up right nice… mmm-mmm." She shook her head exaggeratedly, giggled, digging into a side pocket in the chair, pulling out a pack of her cigars.

He couldn't help but laugh, running a hand across his eyes quickly.

"You're stupid," he shook his head and he was answered by another peal of her laughter.

"I am, on occasion. Ain't nothing wrong with having a bit of fun, specially nowadays. We stay grim and serious, we're gonna think ourselves right into an earlier grave. Say you die six months from now? You wanna look back in the last moment and realize how miserable you been? Or you wanna look back and think 'I made the best of it, what time I had.'"

He reached out for the bottle, and she grinned, taking a swig straight out of it before she passed it to him. He took a quick gulp, another after it as soon as he thought himself capable of it.

"Never exactly been a ball of sunshine." He said quietly.

She nodded, lifting one foot back into the chair, reaching out with the other to kick him lightly in the knee.

"I do get that feeling about you. You've had a hard life, haven't you?"

"Every life is hard. Ain't about to sit here and whine about it like some little bitch."

"No, you're gonna push it down and let it eat you, let you rot from the inside out."

He took another drink, and he heard the slur in his own voice this time.

"Boy, you just a fucking expert on everything about me, ain't you?"

She shrugged.

"Yeah, I'm a know-it-all. It's a flaw, and I'll admit to it. I ain't perfect. But if I'm so wrong about you, why don't you show me where I'm wrong?"

"Cause it ain't none of your damned business."

She grinned again, tongue curling over her bottom lip as she raised an eyebrow at him.

"And what if I make it my business? What the hell you gonna do about it?"

His gaze snapped back to her, the anger boiling up quickly at the challenge. He opened his mouth-

"Anybody ever tell you how sexy you are when you pissed off?"

And nearly choked on his own tongue.

She laughed loudly, self-satisfied.

"Oh yeah, you gonna do just fine around here. You gonna have them bitches eating right out your hand."

"The last damn thing I need is a fucking woman always under my feet." He groused, taking another shot from the bottle. They'd brought it down to just below the edge of the label.

"So, what, you celibate? Like, a fucking priest or something?" She arched an eyebrow at him, reached out for the bottle, wrapped her hand half around his before she finally found the correct grip, hiccupping a little, giggling again before she took her next shot.

"Fuck you."

She laughed louder.

"Nah, maybe somebody needs to fuck you. Maybe you wouldn't be so mad all the time." She stuck her tongue out, and he shook his head, flabbergasted.

"Jesus Christ, you say your prayers with that mouth?"

She nearly dropped the bottle as she handed it back to him, doubling over in laughter.

"Ain't the only thing I can do with this mouth," she smirked at him, licking her lips again.

His mouth fell open, reduced to half pushing it shut as he covered it with his hand. It was the bourbon, the bourbon that made his face feel so hot. He strictly ignored the rush of heat he felt lower in his body.

"You about damned… blatant, I tell you that."

"Anything about me strike you as bashful, Mr. Dixon?"

His eyes snapped up at the words, a flood of images, sounds, sensations accompanying them, the desperate press of her lips against his, the taste of her tongue in his mouth, how her hands had gripped him sure, rough, full of want. But it was just a dream, he insisted.

He didn't want it to be, he knew, drawing a trembling breath as her foot brushed his calf again, hooking behind his knee.

"Whatcha thinking about?"

He looked up quickly, shifting in the chair and carefully placed an arm over his lap, knowing there was no chance at discretion in such close quarters.

"What?"

She smirked.

"You a million miles away right now. You gonna tell me what's so interesting you sitting there ignoring me?"

If she only knew, he thought, maybe she'd shut the hell up. She'd probably be shocked, offended enough to kick him out. Probably never talk to him again. The idea sounded better and better the more he thought of it.

"You can't mind your own business five minutes, can you?"

"I wanted to sit in silence, I could do that by myself."

She was distracted herself, grinning absently as she traced the curve of his calf down to his boot top. He jerked his leg away, finally.

"Jesus Christ, will you stop that?"

She laughed at him again, pulling her leg beneath her and away from him.

"Kept your attention that time though…"

He glared at her, but she only grinned in return.

"Oh come on. You can't blame me… It's been a shitty night. I'm having me a good time, got me a good looking man to talk to. You think I'm bad, but I'm being courteous. When's the last time you just let go? Relaxed?"

He frowned, and the expression seemed to find its way onto her face.

"Not for a long time, huh?"

"Last time I did… we all almost died."

"You keep thinking something else bad's gonna happen?"

He shook his head, denying the worry, but she continued anyway.

"You're safe here. And I'm… I'm being serious. You need somebody to talk to… you need… company… I'm here for you."

"You do this with every random asshole that wanders into camp?"

"No, I don't." she said simply and he looked up, gauging the truth of her statement.

"So, why me?"

"Why not? You think you don't deserve a little attention? Or maybe you already getting it?" She tilted her head, eyeing him as he watched the gears turn in her head. "Maybe you and that blonde, huh?"

His forehead wrinkled, staring at her as though she'd just insisted the sky was green.

"Andrea? Are you insane?"

She shrugged.

"I wouldn't know one way or the other. I just know that there's two options… either you already getting some, or you can't imagine anybody being willing to give you any… and _I _just can't imagine you'd be stupid enough to think that."

"Stupid? What the… who the fuck do you think you are?"

She ignored his anger, kept talking as though he himself never had.

"And you don't strike me as that stupid... or stupid at all, for that matter. So what is it? Why you so surprised that anybody'd want you?"

"Cause nobody ever has." He blurted out, regretted it instantly.

"What?"

It was too late now, he realized, and took another gulp of bourbon.

"Cause nobody ever has," he repeated, refusing to meet her eyes. "Any bitch ever came my way it was for one of two reasons… cause they thought they could get to my brother through me… or because Merle didn't want them, and I was better than nothin'."

"Well…" she said, after a long moment. "Either your brother was the most gorgeous fucking man to ever walk the earth, or he had a taste for _dumb _bitches."

"I ain't thirteen. You ain't gotta sit here and lie to me, try to make me feel better. It's bullshit," he snapped at her, glaring again.

She glared right back at him.

"That's what you think about me? I pity you, I'm telling you a bunch of pretty little lies cause I feel sorry for you? If you were half as stupid, and worthless, as you seem to think about yourself, I wouldn't be wasting my fucking breath on you. You think I can't find somebody better, that be the case?"

She snatched the bottle back from him, took a rough gulp, setting it down on her knee hard enough that the liquor sloshed about.

"Cause let me tell you, motherfucker, I know what I am, and I know what I'm capable of. I can have any man I want. I ain't got to take second best."

He opened his mouth, closed it again, the alcohol muddling his brain. He didn't know how to answer.

"You so full of bullshit, you ain't got no idea about yourself. I only hope that you've been unfortunate enough to have this beat into your head, cause if you actually, willingly believe these things about yourself, then you are the dumbest motherfucker I have ever met."

"Fuck you," he said weakly.

"You're hell on wheels. You're a fucking hurricane. You're fucking… fascinating. You... you draw people like a moth to a flame, and burn them up just as quick. You might have been alone up until now, but if you continue to stay alone, it'll be by your own choice. The world has changed, Dixon. Women ain't looking for who's got the nicest car, or who's wearing the most expensive clothes. They're looking at who's strongest, fastest, smartest, who's gonna be able to think on their feet, protect and feed them, and the children they father in the future. Way I see it, that puts you head and shoulders above 90% of the men in this camp. You think you're just backwoods trash, but whoever made you believe that? What the hell is wrong with being a hillbilly? Ain't nothing more than that myself. Would it kill you to have a little pride in yourself and your talents?"

"Talents?"

She scoffed, rolled her eyes, the anger boiling up in her, he could see.

"You think everybody can do what you do? Hunt an animal, track it, clean it, cook it? You think everybody knows how to forage in the woods, know which tubers and plants are edible? You think that's just common knowledge?"

"It's not knowledge… it's just necessity."

"So you think you stupid, just cause what you know is practical, and not writ up in some schoolbook somewhere?"

He shook his head, again could not find the words.

"Somebody has lied to you, boy, and you believed them. You're a force of fucking nature, Daryl Dixon, and anybody'd be lucky to have you on their side, and any woman'd be _privileged _to have you in their bed. You don't think that's true, then you just as stupid as you think you are."

She shook her head, looked pissed enough to chew nails, taking another shot from the bottle.

"You don't understand," he said softly, and she looked up at him, her expression softening. He felt weak because of it. "It's all I've ever known. My father… I was a mistake. He had his one boy, and he was done with it. Mama got pregnant with me… and he blamed her. Said she'd done it on purpose, just to spite him. He pushed her down a flight of stairs, beat the shit out of her, but… she still had me. And he never… ever let me forget it… That I was never wanted."

Her jaw hardened, the fury flashing in her eyes, and it felt so strange, knowing the anger was _for _him.

"You had a purpose. Don't you ever forget that, Dixon. Just because that worthless bastard never saw it, God had a plan for you."

"I don't believe in all that bullshit. I used to pray when I was little, pray for anything…. For release, for death, for some peace… sometimes just for him to love me, stupid little pussy that I was. God's never done anything for me. Only person ever loved me he took away."

"Your Mama?" she asked quietly, and he thought he saw the glitter of tears in her eyes.

"She killed herself… I was 12. I knew… I knew something was wrong that morning. Merle was.. in the Army, by then. He'd gotten busted again, and they gave him a choice… prison or the service. It was just me left, and she… she made the best lunch... waited till Daddy was gone, took me to school late... And she hugged me… Hugged me, and kissed me, and told me she loved me, over and over again. But it wasn't enough… She didn't love me enough to stay. I came home that afternoon, and there she was. She'd… hung herself, from the banister, jumped over the edge, and there she was, head all crooked, neck broke, so…so dead. I couldn't… couldn't reach her, tried to get her down, kept begging for it not to be real, prayed for it. Neighbors heard me screaming, came for me, called the police. My father came home, and they were there already. He wasn't happy.

"When they left… he was drunk already. They told him to have a drink, soften his loss. They wanted me to see a counselor, but he ran them off the property, and I… I wanted to beg them to stay, because I knew.. I knew what would happen. And it did. He beat me… till I was pissing blood, till my skin was swoll' and split… He broke my cheekbone, my jaw, my arm, my ribs… He made me strip, and he tore pieces out of my back with that… fucking belt buckle of his… Big ole chunks out of my arms, my legs. I was bleeding everywhere, God… I thought I was gonna die right there. I never… never hurt so bad in my life."

She looked horrified, and he couldn't stand it, couldn't stand the pity in her gaze and looked away from her quickly. She didn't allow it, and he found her between his knees, forced to look into her eyes, forced to allow her touch again as she grabbed for his hands, held so tightly he felt the bones grinding together.

"Didn't anybody help you?" she whispered.

"Who'd help me? I was just… poor white trash. Everybody knew my father. The town drunk. Everybody knew my brother, everybody knew I was just like him, knew he already had me selling for him on the street… just a fucking dopehead, a drug dealer. Who the hell would care if I got a little bit of what I deserved?"

"Only person I see that deserved that was your fucking sperm donor. Man like that don't deserve to be called a father."

She reached up to him, forced him to look at her as her hands cupped around his face.

"You didn't deserve that. I understand. Now. Why you feel the way you do. Why you feel like you're better off alone, cause you deserve nothing more. But it's a lie. You're a good man, Daryl Dixon, and worthy of every good thing that will ever come your way. And I'll make sure of it. You gonna hate me." She grinned softly at him, even as the tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. "But you shit outta luck. Cause I like you. You ain't gonna be rid of me now. I'll not stop till you see the truth about yourself."

He moved, stopped, moved again, finally gave up and did what he had wanted to do since early this morning, reaching out and pulling a strand of hair out of her face. Her eyes closed, her head tilting into his hand, and he licked his lips nervously, the rough of his palm finding the silk of her cheek.

"You're beautiful," the words sprang unbidden from his lips, and he felt the heat in his face. What a fucking sap, Merle spat in his mind.

She opened her eyes, looking up at him, smiling softly, and his hand moved without thought, his thumb brushing over her full bottom lip.

"You oughta know." She whispered, her lips brushing over his skin. He let his hand cup around her chin, and her lips opened, closing around the pad of his thumb, the shock of it coursing straight to his groin.

His jaw went slack, the intake of his breath shuddering. Her eyes still on his, she moved to his index, pressing another kiss to his fingertip. Her hands slid down either side of his throat, down over his chest, his arms, and he could feel her fingers flexing as she felt for the firmness of his flesh. They finally found his hand, wrapping lightly around his wrist as he ran his fingertip across the gentle flush of her lips again.

She opened her mouth, pink tip of her tongue finding his skin, her lips finally closing around him, the gentle suction as she pulled back again. Without thought, he offered another finger to her, watching as she took it in again, tongue swirling around it. God, what would that mouth feel like wrapped around his cock?

She opened her eyes, to gauge his reaction, perhaps, seemed to find more than enough of what she was looking for. Her hands left his, palms running up over his thighs. His erection jumped as her hand passed but inches from it. He was convinced she would feel the steady throb of it even through the fabric of his pants. Her hands sought out his hips, squeezing them, and he imagined her legs locked around him, squeezing just as tight. He could not maintain his breathing, panting as he leaned his head back, eyes squeezing shut as he parted his legs further, felt her slide in closer between them, felt her hands move closer inward, his erection straining for the contact.

God, he thought, god, please touch me.

Why, why would she want to, the voice whispered in his mind, she knows what a pitiful little sap you are. A weepy little faggot. She needs a real man, like me.

"May I touch you?" she whispered, and the pleading, the true nature of the request hit him like a truck, the need and desire in her voice, her hands held stiff, and he knew that she would walk away and suffer, if he said no, rather than disobey him. Knew that in this moment she looked to him for a command. His cock jumped again, he felt the cloth dampening as the pre-cum began to leak.

"Yes, you may." His voice was husky, he could barely find the breath to speak.

Her eyes looked pleased, darting from his own down to his lap, licking her lips eagerly. His hands gripped the flimsy arms of the chair, felt he could bend the metal in two as her hands found the button of his pants, moved the zipper down slowly and carefully, his erection springing out eagerly, the head nearly purple, gleaming with wetness.

She laughed, and his eyes darted to hers, ready to take offense, but she licked her lips once more, meeting his gaze again.

"My, my, my, Mr. Dixon. Ain't no wonder you wear pants so loose. You need the extra room, don't you?"

He adjusted himself, sliding down in the chair, pressing his knees wider, and she moaned appreciatively, the vibration of her voice sending a shock through him as she leaned forward, sucking him into her mouth quickly.

His breath caught, trying to stifle the moan. His hands were in the air, reaching for her, but he stopped. She did not let him. She pulled back quickly, the suction hard as she pulled away with a snap of her lips. She tilted her head back, pushing the hair back from her face, and reached for his hand. He let himself be directed, and she wound his fingers tightly into her hair, tight enough it had to hurt Daryl thought, but he thought no more as her mouth closed around him once more. Her tongue swirled about the head of his cock, her head bobbing quickly, taking him in deeper each time.

The moan escaped this time, his head falling back, staring blindly at the ceiling. Her grip tightened on his hand, pressing on it. His head snapped up again, staring raptly as he tightened his grip, knowing what she wanted but only half-believing it. He pressed harder on the back of her head, watched her jaw open wider as she took more and more of him in.

"Oh my god," he groaned, hissing as he felt her lips wrapped firmly around the base of his cock, the muscles in her throat trembling around him as she swallowed, tongue darting out, flicking teasingly against his balls. "Take it all… suck it." He opened his legs wider, his eyes glued on her face, her cheeks drawing in as she sucked hard, neck twisting as she pulled back, rotating her mouth around him. She drew a quick breath through her nose before she sank down on him again, head bobbing in earnest as his hand twisted tight in her hair.

"You like this, don't you?" He watched her, cheeks flushed red, lips parted, air escaping in harsh pants, and she moaned affirmatively, his head jerking back again as the vibrations shook him to his core. "Yeah, you do."

She wrapped one hand around the root of his shaft, pumping him as her mouth lavished attention on the tip, her other hand cupping his balls lightly, rolling them in her palm. His hips jumped, found himself most satisfied to hear and feel her choke as his cock drove up quick into her mouth, the muscles clamping around him exquisitely.

He pushed her back, the alcohol, the evidence of her desire fueling his confidence. He wrapped a hand around her throat, dragged her upward. She made it to her feet awkwardly, choking, but he watched her pupils dilate further, and he dragged her close, her legs straddling one of his, claiming her mouth, forcing his tongue deep within it as she moaned and clung to his shoulders for balance.

"You want me?" he growled, and she nodded, but he tightened his grip. "Say it," he commanded, and she gasped, and he felt the wet heat between her legs even through the cloth separating them. She was eating this shit up, he thought, half sure he was going to wake again anytime soon.

"I want you… I want you to fuck me…"

The power felt like a drug, coursing through his veins, a sensation he never wanted to lose again.

"And how do good little girls ask nicely? What do you say?"

Her eyes were wide, and he knew in that moment, this was a game she enjoyed, one she seldom got to play.

"Please. Please. I want you to fuck me."

"I can do that," he whispered, face close to hers, and she darted forward, mouth closing around his, and he tasted the slight saltiness of his fluid on her tongue, thought it tasted like ownership, like a brand.

His hand dug between them, found the hilt of his knife and withdrew it from his sheath. She hissed and jumped and he broke the kiss, lowered his gaze to find the blade had left a fine line of blood on her inner thigh. She trembled as she stared at the knife, but did not pull away, the trust visible in her eyes, and he felt his desire growing like gasoline thrown on a fire. He was more careful this time, slipping the blade in between the cloth and her skin, cutting away her shorts and underwear, the sports bra after that.

She trembled in his arms, shook like a leaf, her lips dark and full of blood.

"I want you," she repeated, "I want to feel all of you. I want you inside of me… Now."

He stood, taking her with him, finding it little more than a strain to lift her to her feet. Her hands tore at his clothing, the wifebeater flying away first, and she dropped quickly to her knees, unlacing his boots. He smirked at her, hand lazily pumping his cock as she removed his socks and shoes, tugging his pants down. He kicked them away as she sprang to her feet again, arms clinging about his shoulders.

His hands splayed over her back, flattening her breasts across his chest, wanting to feel every curve and line of her body pressed into his. His hands moved over her body possessively, smoothing over her back, grasping her hips and grinding his bare erection into her stomach, gripping her ass and pulling her in closer. She moaned, her hands fluttering just like her eyes as she struggled to keep them open, the expression on her face ecstatic.

He gripped her hips, squeezed hard enough to bruise, and shoved her back. She stumbled for a moment, bare breasts bobbing enticingly.

"Open it up," he grinned, watching her hop to. God, when was the last time his lover had been so eager? She zipped the partition open, revealing the bedroom, several more plastic totes and more milk crates. It was a real bed, a mattress and box springs sat on the floor of the tent, and he shoved her onto it roughly, pushing her onto her back.

She gasped, stopped breathing altogether as he crawled over top of her. Her legs parted easily, eagerly as he slid between them, her hips tilting up and, oh, he had been right. Everything was so easy with her. He barely had to guide himself before he began to press in slowly. He groaned loudly, eyes rolling back in his head as her muscles clamped around him. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she squirmed beneath him, muscles rolling and clenching around him, forcing another moan from him.

"Oh, you are so fucking tight," he whispered into her ear, and she clung to his shoulders, legs raising to wrap around his hips, lowering again to press her heels into the mattress, lifting herself up, adjusting her hips, bringing him deeper than before. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, thrusting harshly, his body demanding it.

She whimpered quietly, but did not fight him, and he slowed, for all that he did not want to.

"You alright?"

Her face was flushed as she nodded.

"It's… it's been a long time…Just… have to get used to you."

He smiled to himself, wondered if it was sick to take pleasure in the fact he was hurting her right now.

He pulled out slowly, thrust in again, watched her grimace. His fingers found her clit, rubbing and pinching at it. He felt a warm rush of liquid around his cock, felt the muscles loosening, and he pumped into her again, sinking himself in to the hilt.

"Fuck," he whispered as he thrust again, felt his balls tightening, drawing up. No, he thought, no, not yet. She clung to his shoulders, nails digging in, moaned against his throat, and he felt her hips raising to meet each thrust, harder, and harder.

"Harder," she moaned, pleading. "Give it to me… please, Daryl, please, harder."

He could do little more than obey, wanted to do nothing else, and obliged her, thrusts rough and quick. She clung to his shoulders, nails digging into his back as she panted, moaned in his ear.

"Touch me," she begged, and his hand wedged itself between them again, plucking at her hard little clit, and she moaned, hips jumping, pushing his cock in deeper.

"Fuck," he muttered again, and she moaned, rocking her hips up into his, meeting his thrusts. He could feel her her clit pulsing, her cunt throbbing around him, felt the tremors in her body as her orgasm approached.

Her eyes squeezed shut, breath escaping her lungs in shallow bursts. She undulated against him, and for a moment he wondered what it would be like to have her ride him.

It was too late though, for he heard the high-pitch in her breaths, felt the erratic movement of her hips. She was close, and he felt very proud of himself, having worked her so quickly. But he felt it then, the tightening in his lower stomach. God, not now, he pleaded. He had to finish her, had to see her shatter, break, give it all up to him.

His fingers worked faster, his other hand grasped tight in the sheets, and she gasped loudly, head thrashing as her heels dug into his back.

"I'm gonna come," she muttered, the words barely escaping through her teeth.

He rubbed harder at her clit, hips pounding into her as his own orgasm finally hit, his whole world going white, feeling as though he had emptied out everything within him in that moment.

She moaned, thrashing beneath him, the tremors of her orgasm, her pussy tightening and shifting and gripping, milking every last drop from him.

His arms shook as he propped himself over her but finally she pulled him down, and wrapped her legs tight around him. Her muscles still shook and clenched around his slowly softening cock.

"I ain't never pulled that off without trying." She whispered in his ear, hands splayed over his back. For once he did not think to hide the scars her hands sought out, smoothing over them as though she could smooth them away.

"Don't think I've ever pulled that off," he whispered back, slowly rolling off of her. He felt hot and sweaty, saw that she was as well as she made it to her knees, leaning over him and quickly unzipping a window in the tent. Her breasts dangled before his face, and he took the time to lift his head, sucking quickly on a nipple, drawing it out from between his teeth.

She giggled quietly, looked down at him.

"Well, hell, you was good, boy, and you didn't even know it."

He grinned at her, and he did feel sated, comfortable, and content.

She curled up next to him, laying her head on his stomach. His hand found her hair again, threading through it, leisurely.

He never remembered falling asleep.

OOOOOO

Author's Note: Norman Reedus, in a second season interview, said that Daryl was 'definitely a virgin' and he'd probably run away screaming if anyone tried to kiss him, so I'm basing this more on one of the first season interviews, in which he said with a brother like Merle, Daryl probably had plenty of girls on his arm. Also, this is partially based on the fact that I agree with one comment on the internet, in which someone said that they couldn't believe that Daryl could possibly be a virgin, because some woman would have gotten his ass drunk and taken advantage of him… which is pretty much what my Aleda-muse demanded.

Next chapter, Aleda and Daryl deal with the consequences of their impulsivity.


	11. Chapter 9

He slept hard, without interruption, no dreams, no nightmares. That alone seemed strange to him upon waking in the half-light. The lantern behind the partition was lit, filtering through a dull gleam that still managed to send a knife straight through either eye. He squeezed them shut quickly, covering them with his hands, a quiet groan rumbling in his chest.

He wasn't in his own tent, that became obvious to him even before the pain fully registered. The bed was too wide, too firm, the surrounding space too large. He pried one eye open slowly, peering around him slowly. Years ago, he would have woken in a panic, first thought being that of an escape. It wasn't the first time he'd woken in a strange bed, wouldn't have been the first time an angry husband or boyfriend (even a few girlfriends) had been there to greet him when he did. There was no such threat now, and he pieced the previous night together slowly in his mind. His hands quickly found his eyes again, rubbing them roughly. Upon opening, the scenery had not changed, and he let out a shuddering breath.

It hadn't been a dream. A mistake, though, that was what it was. Of all the people… had he really? They had been drunk and… the things he'd done… Jesus. It was a night he'd live to regret, he knew, if he even lived that long. His own stupidity was glaringly apparent to him: of all the people he picked, it was the one person who could see to it he was out on his ass outside that fence before he could blink, the one person who had the fire and manpower to make good on it. He flattened his palm over his mouth slowly, sitting up and dragging the blankets to his chest.

Where the hell were his clothes even at? How the hell was he going to get out of here? It was dark enough outside. If he could pick his way through the tents just right, maybe he could make it back to his tent before anyone noticed. His feeble plans at escape were interrupted by a shaft of light as the partition zipped up. He winced, holding a hand in front of his eyes again.

"Jesus Christ. Turn the light off." He growled, regretted it as soon as his mouth opened. Good idea, order her around, piss her off a little more. His suicidal streak was showing again.

She laughed, and he peeled one eye open slowly to peer at her. She pulled the partition back together behind her, only a glimmer of light escaping from the front portion of the tent. She had a towel wrapped around her, though her hair was dry, wrapped atop her head and secured with a band. His stomach lurched dangerously, dropped somewhere down near his feet. He felt perilously close to vomiting.

"See you decided to wake up." She said quietly, watching him for a moment before edging around the bed and opening a tote to pull out several articles of clothing from neat stacks within it.

"What time is it?" he croaked.

"5 am." She answered, the towel dropping carelessly as she pulled on her clothing bit by bit.

"Christ," he growled again, averting his gaze quickly. "Why so early?"

"PT. Gotta get you out of here before the majority of the camp wakes up, less you looking to spread this around?" She looked to him, expression flat, serious.

"No," he said slowly, shaking his head, watching her carefully as he turned his head again. "Not much for talking."

"Good," she nodded, pulling her shirt over her head, and he caught her scent as the fabric moved, clean and cool despite the early morning warmth.

He swallowed, shifted uncomfortably, wrapping the sheets tighter around him.

"Wouldn't want anybody to know about me either."

She snorted, sitting down on the bed not far from him, bending over to pull on a pair of socks.

"Now we ain't gonna have this same conversation again, are we?" She looked over her shoulder at him. "You see where it got us last time." Her eyes traveled pointedly to his naked shoulders.

"Look," he said quickly, "I… I didn't… I wasn't planning on this."

She laughed again, looking back down as she pulled one boot on, began lacing it up with a lack of thought that spoke of repetition.

"That's sweet, son. But let me tell you a little bit about me. This ain't my first rodeo, cowboy. We got drunk, we got emotional, we got laid. Sounds like every other Saturday night I've had since I was 18. You sitting there thinking I'm gonna be angry over some sort of… imagined lost virtue? Ain't got a whole lot left to lose, son, and that ain't got nothin' to do with you, or what happened between us." She finished tying the last knot, and looked back to him again.

"I wanted it. I went through with it. You didn't do anything more than what's human nature. You responded to an advance that I willingly offered. But you thinking about bragging about your conquest at some point, I'd advise against it."

He opened his mouth to refute her statement but she held up a hand quickly.

"Listen to me. I ain't finished. I'm sittin' in a very precarious position here. There's quite a few people… quite a few men… that don't exactly agree with me sitting at the top of this food chain. They got some reason to believe I've taken a shine to somebody, they gonna use it against me. They gonna use it as evidence of my emotionality… my irrationality… evidence I ain't fit to lead. They gonna see you getting special attention, and they gonna start to wonder what other special privileges you getting… They gonna wonder if everything is so fair around here as I say it is, and they gonna use that against me, too.

"You gotta understand. This ain't nothing personal. I ain't ashamed of what I did. I enjoyed it." She looked to him, and smiled softly after a moment. "Enjoyed the hell out of it, in fact. Doesn't change the fact that I'm in a different position than you. You could come out of a different tent every morning, and nobody'd blink an eye, but the same rules don't apply to me. We like to pretend we've advanced so much, but it hasn't changed the fact that a woman in power is still unwelcome. They get the chance, they're gonna use you against me. Fact is, you don't know how to keep your mouth shut, you're a loaded gun pointed right at my head, waiting for them to pull the trigger."

"Ain't particularly fond of spreading my business around."

She nodded, grinned at him, and he found himself returning a soft smile.

"Good."

She stood, moving to another tote, turning sideways to get farther past the bed.

"Is this gonna happen again?" He clamped his jaw on the words too late, cursing his own feebleness of mind.

She stopped in the middle of removing the top from one of the totes.

"You already thinkin' about a next time, huh?" The grin spread slowly across her face, setting the lid vertically beside the tote. "Maybe," she said, looking up to him for a moment, before looking down again. She withdrew a rifle from the tote, the same rifle he had seen in her hands the previous morning.

"You're starting on the line tomorrow. You gonna need something more than that bow and arrow, Geronimo. Sure, it might do you well in the field… It's compact, quiet, but what you gonna do when ten or twelve of 'em come up on us? You run outta bolts, and what you gonna do? Throw it at 'em?"

"We got a few shotguns between us," he said quietly, his arms relaxing, the blankets folding around his waist. She shook her head, setting the butt of the rifle upon the floor, rummaging again in the tote and removing several boxes of ammo, one at a time.

"Ain't no shotguns on the line. Too much spread. It's gonna take out what you pointing at, that's true, but it might clip the one beside it, the one behind it, maybe stun it long enough for us to get out there to clean up, end up having one of us lose a chunk of leg to it, or a finger, and then a life. No, what I want is a nice clean shot right between the eyes, a guaranteed kill." She offered the rifle to him, and he took it carefully, feeling the heft of it in his hands, the stock worn with use, but the bolt still slid smooth, the barrel clean and free of carbon.

"This thing's just about an antique." He looked up to her as she nodded.

"Just about. And you gonna be careful with it, till you pick yourself out one of your own. That was my Daddy's. It's a good gun, reliable. Somethin' happens to it, I will kill you," she finished, without mirth. "Gonna give you a good excuse to be in here this time o' morning. Anybody asks, I woke you up, and you pissed about it. They ain't gonna ask no more questions than that."

He nodded his understanding, and she returned the gesture, pushing the top back down on the tote, sliding past the bed again and to the partition.

"Your clothes are over there." He looked in response to her gesture, found them in a precisely folded pile atop an overturned milk crate, boots neatly placed before them. She left him to dress, pulling the partition shut behind her.

He set the rifle aside carefully, slipping out from beneath the covers to pull on his clothes as quickly as he could with his head still throbbing, stomach still rolling dangerously. His boots were the worst, pressing his stomach flat over his thighs as he bent to tie them quickly. His mouth watered alarmingly and he gulped, squeezing his eyes shut, willing his stomach to settle again.

It did, just enough for him to stand, swaying dizzily as he did so, leaning over the bed for a moment before he grasped the rifle, slinging it over his shoulder, stacking the boxes of ammo and tucking them carefully under his arm before he slid past the partition.

She had thankfully dimmed the lamplight, the front flaps of the tent opened to reveal the still thick darkness of the early morning beyond it. He heard the sound of water running into a bowl, kibble hitting metal, heard the whistle of a kettle that was blessedly short. She returned to sight a moment later, a steaming mug of liquid clasped in one hand, the tiny chain of a tea ball hanging over the edge. She offered it to him, and he accepted it, transferring his precious cargo to her, sniffing at it carefully, wrinkling his nose.

"What is this?"

"Feverfew, valerian, skullcap, lavender, mullein, and ginger. Daddy's best prescription for a hangover. And you sure do look like you need it… You look like shit." She added, smirking, setting the rifle and ammunition aside carefully.

"Thanks," he croaked.

He glowered, taking a careful sip of the tea, waited for his stomach to lurch alarmingly, but found the reaction weak enough to venture another sip.

"Here." She offered a hand to him, and he set the mug carefully on one knee, reaching out his free hand. A small coral-colored pill and an orange-colored lump fell into his palm.

He peered at it in the lamplight, found that he could not yet focus his eyes enough to read the small black letters.

"What is this?" he repeated, taking another careful sip of the tea.

"Darvocet… and candied ginger. All together it's gonna get rid of your headache, settle your stomach, and let you get some sleep. You gonna need your strength tomorrow. That eight hour shift is longer than you think." She exited the tent again, crouching just within sight, turning off the camp stove the kettle had previously been whistling from. "Take your pill, finish your tea, and suck on the ginger till you lay down. You'll be right as rain, soon enough." He heard the metal top closing, heard her pouring the heated water back into the water cooler beside the tent.

She stood before him again, tucking her shirt in carefully, an old habit she had to break, he thought.

"Much as I'd like to, can't stand here and talk all morning. On point today."

"You gonna be alright?" he looked at her skeptically as he swallowed the pill quickly, tucking the lump of ginger against his cheek as he took another sip of the tea.

She laughed, looking at him.

"You cute… I'll be fine. Done had my cureall for the morning. Ain't gonna be the first time I showed up for PT hungover. Didn't stop me before… ain't gonna do it now." She turned away, began to leave, looked back to him, reluctantly, something told him.

"You zip everything up, you get ready to leave, but don't stay too long. People gonna be waking up soon." She stepped backwards, head tilted slightly as she smiled at him. "Don't forget your smokes, hillbilly." She spun on her heel, but looked over her shoulder, back to him for a third time.

"See you next time," she added quietly.


	12. Chapter 10

Author's Note:

My Daryl-muse has finally spoken! Perhaps he is feeling sorry for me since I was just diagnosed with pneumonia… at 25… yay me. O_o'' I wrote most of this in the doctor's office by hand, and in my head while getting and waiting for my chest X-Rays to be read.

These are some of Daryl's memories in dream form, so be aware that time is fluid, and several times can be operating simultaneously in his memory. Also be aware that there is EXTREMELY DISTURBING CONTENT in this chapter. Blood and guts and death. But since you're all fans of a show that's big on blood and guts, maybe you won't mind. :-D Anyhow, you have been warned. So now, without further ado, Chapter 10.

OOOOOO

In the early morning light, he sleeps soundly, and he dreams.

There is the smell of magnolias from the trees across the dirt road. He feels the heat of the sun dappled on his bare back, his shoulder blades and ribs easily visible through his thin skin. He is nine years old. The pants he wears are too large for him, too long, just as the belt that holds them up is. Both were once Merle's, but he has gotten new clothes for school as he does every year. Daryl receives what he has outgrown, though he has another seven years to meet his brother in size.

In the past several months he has bored more holes in the leather with his pocket knife, once Merle's as well, to accommodate his shrinking waist. His father's mood has grown increasingly worse as his hours at work are reduced. He complains that they use too much electricity, too much water. He loads his brother's plate full, and his as well at dinner. Daryl's mother gives him what is left, hiding in the kitchen to eat the scraps from all their plates when they are finished and she grows pale and thin, translucent. There is a small cupboard beneath the stairs. Daryl eats there as frequently as he himself hides, for his father is often far too drunk to search for him within.

Daryl hates his father, and knows it is a sin. He knows of sins, and of evil, and knows they are not imaginary forces, but real, and tangible, beating in his chest with every breath as steady as his heart.

There are myriad reasons for his Father's anger, but only two ready outlets. His father hits Merle, but infrequently, for Merle is worthy, is capable, not in need of a constant reminder of his place as Daryl is, and their mother. Daryl loves him fiercely, and follows after him like a stray.

Their house sits at the very edge of town, and Daryl learns quickly that he cannot be hit if he is not there, and hides often in the woods behind his house. His brother calls it home, but it is the only thing that he disagrees about with Merle. Merle is older and smarter, stronger and faster, and Daryl knows this because Merle has told him. He learns by watching his brother, and will gain weight in the months to come as he learns of sleight of hand, how the folds of loose clothing easily conceal things, good things, things he has no money to buy. He smokes his first cigarette when he is four, drinks his first beer when he is five, tastes his first chocolate bar when he is six, and smokes his first joint when he is seven. Merle says there may be some hope yet that he becomes a man, and his thin chest swells with pride at the thought of it.

The bark is rough upon his stomach, his bony thighs wrapped hard around the limb as he inches further out, peering through the boughs at his chosen quarry. The animal scurries along the edge of the wire fence separating his yard from the one next door. Daryl does not like it. It bites, once latched its teeth into the tendon in the back of his leg and would not let go. The wound became infected. His mother tells him that he nearly dies from it. He does not know. He remembers the day the wound splits, leaking blood and pus like a fountain, filling the empty space in his too large shoes, soaking the newspaper between his toe and the tip, and he remembers no more until he wakes in a hospital bed.

The woman is an old bitch who needs to mind her own business, Daryl knows this because Merle has told him. She calls the police when their grass is too long, when she hears their mother screaming, when Daryl catches the school bus with fresh bruises and no lunch. He spends time in foster homes, but no one wants him, Merle has told him this too, and he is right as he always is, and it is never long before he returns home again, and he always finds it strange how his father seems more angry in his absence than his presence. His bones are brittle, the doctors say, that he is _kalsium-defissient_, though Daryl does not know what that means. They say it is why he so often leaves the emergency room with fresh casts.

He's not very bright, his Father says, charming and dapper in the presence of the nurses as Merle will grow to be, and often runs into walls and doors, falls down stairs and out of trees. By the time he is thirteen he knows when the rain comes and the snow, for he feels it in his bones, a throbbing ache that is always right.

He does not understand his brother and father's fascination with females, for they do little more than laugh at him. His clothes and his ears are too big, his body too small, his blonde hair too white, too long, too greasy, because the sun burns freckles across the bridge of his nose. They call him dirty, stinking, they call him white trash, they call him bird chest and the rocks they throw to drive him away hurt less than the words they hurl in his direction.

He hits one of them once, as hard as he can, a girl Merle's age, makes the blood flow from her nose like a faucet. The principal beats him with a paddle, but his father takes a hammer to his right hand, and breaks three of his _metta-karpals _the nurse says. His father says he did it himself, too stupid to aim for the head of the nail.

He never forgets that he is an embarrassment, a burden, unwanted and unneeded, a black mark on the family tree, and he strives every day to be more like Merle, who is not.

He thinks that his mother must be something different, not a woman, not like the girl's at school, not like the giggling nurses, or the skinny, painted women his Father brings home. They smell like cigarette smoke and what his mother says is cheap perfume. Daryl thinks it must be bug spray. No, she is not a woman… an angel maybe.

She cries when the women come to their house, sits outside with Daryl in the porch swing, hugging him tightly. He buries his face against her shoulder, breathes deep, imagines he can feel feathers tickling his nose. She smells like clean things, and warm food. His mother loves him, but he knows it is only because she is weak, stupid, worthless, just like he is.

He knows because Merle has told him. Merle is the spitting image of their father, but Daryl takes after their mother's weak genes. There are savages in her background, their father says, and that he never would have married her if he had known she was a half-breed. Daryl does not understand his father's hatred for his mother's parents.

His grandmother is plump, wrinkled like an old dried apple, her eyes warm and brown like the chocolate he only sees when he can steal it. She tells him stories of white roses that spring from the tears of mourning mothers, of a cliff where things fall up instead of down, of a face of bald rock where you can see the devil's reflection in the full moon, of a wagon train of floating lights with nothing attached to them, of witches who live in rivers, begging for kisses, drowning any who let their face meet the water's surface. His grandfather has no patience for Merle, calls him a bad kid, a bad influence. Daryl wants to be angry, but he cannot find the effort. His grandfather loves him, too, but Daryl cannot imagine him being weak, or worthless, or stupid.

His grandfather is a master carver, a master tracker. He teaches Daryl how to use the knife to make things, not just destroy them, teaches him to whittle arrows, forks, and spoons, and tiny animals. They hunt for turkey, following droppings, a trail of upturned leaves, three-pronged with a mark for the spur in the soft, wet ground, and Daryl makes his first kill with a rifle with his Elder by his side.

For once in his life, he feels powerful, not weak, capable, not stupid. His grandfather shows him how to attach the feathers to the arrow's shaft, fletching, he calls it, and tells him that it will make the arrow fly straight and true, like a bird itself.

Later, they hunt for deer, and Daryl learns the mark of its cloven hoof, the rutting spots on trees rubbed bare, and his grandfather shows him how to remove the sinew, how to stretch and dry it, how to soak and bend a bit of green wood and string it tight.

He stands behind him, adjusts his shoulders and his arms, teaches him to draw and release. He hits the center of the target every time, and it is years before he ever fires a rifle with such unerring accuracy.

"It's in your blood," his grandfather says, "from my Grandfathers." His voice is deep, rumbling like stones in a land slide.

His prey scurries closer, and he stretches long and flat along the branch, grasping tight with his knees to free his hands. His fingers clutch the shaft of the slingshot, his hand feels the weight of the rubber pulling against it, the weight of the ball bearing that is his chosen ammunition. It is his favorite marble, strange and shining, but he is willing to part with it to succeed in his aim.

The animal is out infrequently, and Daryl knows this is his one and only chance to catch it alone today, or any other day.

The pink jeweled collar glitters in the sunlight, the world narrowing away, his eyes drifting into focus, his breath slowing, stopping. His heart beats once, twice, and he releases his missile, his aim straight and true.

The ball bearing hits just between the black, beady eyes, exploding out of the back of the skull, turning the curly white fur pink and gray with bits of shattered bone and brain. The poodle never even yelps, goes down on its face in a crumpled heap, like a doll of rags.

He slips away silently into the woods, hiding deep in a gully, and it will be nearly an hour before the old bitch returns home and finds the dog dead.

He waits, and listens with satisfaction as she screams. The police come for him, he sees this as night falls, their lights spinning and flashing. Their voices draw near, and he runs, because they will never catch him, never. He will die, he will starve, he will drown before they do.

He loses himself in the darkness, in the forest, does not find his way back for nearly two weeks. He finds berries and roots, shoots and leaves, enough to sate his hunger, enough to keep him going. The water in the streams makes him sick, and he grows weaker. He forgets which leaves he uses to clean himself of the liquid excrement, and blisters soon rise on tender flesh. He scratches himself raw before he finds the gully he first left, and follows it home.

The old bitch's house is boarded shut, his own house empty. He had thought of his mother often in the forest, but she was not there to greet him, nor when she returns home with his father will she even acknowledge him. Merle is gone, and they do not make a plate for him at dinner, and he eats a cold bologna sandwich alone in the kitchen.

He dreams of brain and bone and teeth, torn lips and broken limbs, of Walkers surrounding him, stale, dead breath, rotting, reeking flesh.

He dreams of his mother. He sees her put the rope around her neck, but it is his father that pushes her over the edge.

He dreams of water, running hard and overflowing. He sees the house as it was when he was 19, while others leave their little town for places like Atlanta, and Tampa and Nashville with neat little diplomas in hand. It is just as he was always told, he is stupid. He has been suspended too many times this, his second Senior year, and he will never return. He may not have brains, but he has pride. While others fly away like birds on the wing, Daryl drowses drunk in the cloistered heat of his living room, does not wake until his cigarette burns down to his fingertips.

He startles awake, stomping out the butt, leaving a hole in the rug his mother wove herself. It is the last of many holes, for Daryl looks up, and sees that the stairs have become a river. He wonders if it is the 'shine, a tainted batch. He watches the water run across the floor to his feet, forming puddles around them. It is real.

He follows it, his boots sloshing through the many waterfalls that pour down the stairs, makes his way to the end of the hallway. He dreams the door is large, much larger than himself, that he must push it open against a tide of water that turns to blood. As he begins to panic, begins to choke, it is gone, and he is peering into the bathroom, dingy and stinking with overuse.

It is as he remembers it. His father sleeps, deep in a drunken stupor, the faucet running at full blast, overflowing the claw-footed tub. He snores, mouth open, head tilted back, fingers somehow still clinging to the empty bottle of whiskey in his hand.

It never crosses his mind, it is never a thought, it is only a motion that moves straight to his feet, his hands. He feels as though he floats across the room and (brains, and blood, and bone) his Father is below him.

It is easy, so easy. He does not think. His boot rises from the water, dripping, lifts one arm, and then the other over the edge. The bottle fills as his hand sinks, and Daryl's nose fills with the scent of Old Crow. His father's head slips down the edge of the tub, but he never wakes, and it is easy, so easy, just a little push, and his head is below the surface. He never wakes, never jerks, and Daryl watches, presses down, until the bubbles stop, the water stilling beyond the steady lap of the running faucet.

He laughs, and laughs, and laughs, finds that he feels nothing, nothing at all, and makes himself a sandwich before calling the police.

It is declared an accidental drowning in which alcohol was the primary factor, and for a week after, Daryl sits alone in the house, piss drunk himself, staring into the bathroom, waiting for the water to start again.

He feels nothing.

He feels something.

He is not mourning.

He is celebrating.


	13. Chapter 11

Author's Note:

Short part, this time.

Daryl finds that he is not as alone in camp as he thinks.

OOOOOO

He woke slowly, swimming up out of the sea of sleep.

He had not been so lucky to escape the dreams this time.

He rubbed at his eyes carefully, found them blessedly pain-free, and opened them, sitting up slowly on his cot. Rickety as it was, it had a tendency to flip every time he sat up. Lacking a headache so far, he had no desire to turn ass over teakettle on the hard-packed ground this morning. Was it still morning? He found that he had no clear idea, and swung his naked legs over the metal railing, throwing his blankets back in a pile behind him.

He stretched happily, just as happily found himself still feeling the tail end of the Darvocet. He dragged his hands quickly through his hair, found that the motion actually did very little to tame it. He needed a haircut, he thought, and scratched at his chin, amused as always that something so simple could feel so ridiculously fucking good upon waking.

He heard the rest of camp moving around beyond his tent, and stood slowly, stooping to avoid hitting the low ceiling of the dome tent.

"Ah, fuck," he mumbled. His clothes were still hanging by the river. He sniffed quickly at the clothes he had worn the day before, found them passable and tugged them back on, perturbed to find a rip in the neck of his brand new undershirt. "Well, shit. That didn't last long."

He had fresh socks at least, he thought, and sat again briefly to pull them on, lacing up his boots. He glanced at the carton of cigarettes on the tiny folding table beside his cot.

"Fuck it," he muttered, and opened the flaps, pulling a pack out. He popped it against his wrist several times, packing the tobacco to the filter, and dug into the saddlebag just on the other side of the table. Rummaging past the Ziploc bag full of his brother's drugs, he found what he was searching for. His brother's Zippo, the Imperial Eagle emblazoned on one side. He flicked it open, shut, and open again, finally pushing the memories from him, tapping out one cigarette from the pack and lighting it.

The head rush was immediate, and he closed his eyes, savoring the sensation. He hadn't felt like this since he was a kid.

He flicked the Zippo closed again, tucked it into his hip pocket, setting the pack of cigarettes on the bedside table, and stood to unzip the tent's flaps, blowing the smoke out into the open air, zipping it shut behind him.

"Well, looks like you made yourself some new friends." He knew the hateful drawl, though he had never heard it quite _so_ malicious. He turned his head, found Shane very few feet away, jabbing angrily at the fire. The side of his eye was bright purple, a healthy knot just beneath the gash in his eyebrow.

He couldn't help the bark of laughter that tore out of him. She'd got him good, hadn't she?

"The fuck you talkin' about, Walsh?" He spoke around the cigarette, took another drag from it, watching the man carefully as he removed it from his mouth, flicking the ash away carelessly.

"Didn't go back to your tent last night. Not till morning."

He narrowed his eyes, the expression reflected back to him on the other man's tired face. He didn't look as though he'd slept at all.

He knew, Daryl thought. Best to nip it in the bud.

"You waiting up for me now? You that lonely now your fuck buddy's got her husband back?"

Shane's eyes narrowed further, pulling a faint wince from him, curiosity behind the blatant hatred on his face.

"Yeah, that's right. Ya ain't the only one capable o' watching." Daryl answered the unspoken question, grabbed the straps of his empty rucksack and left before he got a response.

He had a feeling the cop was going to prove to be a problem.

OOOOOO

He passed the Captain on his way. He could see her form atop an RV, blotting out a portion of the sun as she peered past the fencing with a pair of binoculars, could hear her peal of laughter clearly even amongst the others' chatter and mirth. About 3 o'clock in the afternoon, judging from the sun, he thought. Christ, he'd slept a long time.

The latrines were in better condition than he expected, though haphazardly, hurriedly built. Ten plywood stalls had been built over either ditch, one for the men and one for the women. The door clapped shut on its spring behind him. They must have just been in to clean it, he thought, the smell of lime overpowering the scent of waste. A bench had been built over top, a simple hole cut through it. He had no need of it this time, and finished his business, idly reading the handwritten sign that had been tacked against the back wall, 'Clean up after yourself, or else.'

The door slammed shut again, and he found that he felt ten times better. Another drag from his cigarette, and he felt closer to an eleven. He shouldered the straps of his rucksack again, and turned, running smack into a solid form. The Mexican, he realized, found himself stumbling back more than the smaller man. Compact little son of a bitch, he thought, all muscle underneath his baggy clothing.

"Woah! Sorry, man. Took the corner too quick." He glanced up at his face, a bright smile immediately springing to his own. "Hey! Uh… Dixon, isn't it?"

He nodded carefully and the man smirked, jutting a hand out.

"You owe me a handshake, man."

Daryl weighed his options, found it easier to simply acquiesce, reaching out his hand. The shake was firm, more so than he expected, pulling his cigarette from his mouth with his other hand.

"I been wanting to talk to you since yesterday, man. That's an awesome fucking bike. It's a Triumph, right? '70, '71? Bonneville 650?"

The surprised expression must have been visible on his face, for the other man grinned at him, answering his question before he voiced it.

"I used to work in a custom shop, back home. S'why everybody calls me Mikey. Yanno, like Orange County Choppers? Guy came by all the time, bike just like that. Course, he wasn't exactly the kind of person I'd compliment on it, you know? Say, where you from anyway? You don't sound like these flatlanders."

"You a talkative little son of a bitch," Daryl said after a moment, struggling to process the quickly spoken words.

Mikey grinned at him, shrugging.

"Yeah. But why the hell not? All we got left to do is talk, right?"

Daryl shrugged after a moment.

"Cobb County," he answered.

The man's expression brightened, almost impossibly.

"No shit, really? Where at?"

"Kennesaw," he answered, forehead furrowed in confusion. "Why?"

"You're fucking kidding me. Really? That's where I'm from, man! What part?"

"Uh… edge of town. Just before the National Park."

The smaller man laughed, pointed at him.

"Green house, right? Two stories, the one with the fucked up front porch?"

Daryl frowned.

"How in the hell you know all this?"

"Fuck, you know how many times I drove past that house? It was either the one with big ass redneck truck, or the one with the Mercedes." He grinned, and Daryl shrugged again, conceding the point. "I lived downtown, big white one beside the courthouse?"

"Across from the Piggly-Wiggly?"

"That's the one!" The man clapped his hands together, grinning to him. "Yeah, man, my family owned the store. You know the little woman, was always up at the cash register?"

His brow furrowed again. "Miss… Carla?"

"Carlita," Mikey corrected grinning to him. "That's my grandma, man. Small fucking world, right?" He laughed, grabbing Daryl's hand again despite his best efforts to avoid it, shaking it vigorously again. "God, it's great to fucking meet you, man. I mean, it's good to see a live face, but somebody from the County? _Aye dios mios_. There's more of us, here, you know? Not just my family. Half a dozen of us, or so. They gonna be glad to see you. Come on."

He was off before Daryl could say no. Cursing quietly, he stomped out his cigarette and followed behind the smaller man.


	14. Chapter 12

Author's Note:

As always, please forgive all typos.

OOOOOO

Mikey glanced over his shoulder, an amused expression pulling at his lips as he realized how far Daryl trailed behind him as they made their way back into camp, away from the latrines.

"Why 'on't you come on. You just as slow as molasses on a cold, damned day. Make me think you don't wanna even meet nobody."

Daryl opened his mouth to argue, but Mikey smirked knowingly at him, and Daryl gritted his teeth together, and picked up speed for a few seconds, Mikey pausing to allow him to catch up.

"Yanno," Daryl said after a moment. "You don't sound like no Mexican I ever met."

Mikey snorted, grinning at him.

"Cause I ain't. I'm American. I was born here in Georgia, my father and mother was born here in Georgia. My grandmother was born here in Georgia. You gonna have to go all the way back to my great grandfather 'fore you find somebody born out of country. He came from Puerto Rico. Came here to find his fortune. He found it alright. Bought himself a cotton field that had a pocket o' crude oil beneath it. Started plowing one day, a regular old farmer, and ended the next day a rich man.

"We had us enough money left by my Daddy's generation that when old man Robinson decided to give up his grocery franchise, we bought it from him cash in hand. Family was all working in the store from then on. Daddy thought it'd be a great idea for us, all living across the road, you know. Makes me kind of sad when I think about it. How we left it all behind."

His mouth quirked, the first time Daryl had seen anything but an expression of happiness on the man's round face. He scrubbed his fingernails into his scalp, pushed the front fringe of his hair back up off his forehead, before shrugging.

"But we all made it out alive. I'd be ungrateful to God if I didn't thank him every day for that fact."

Daryl nodded, and Mikey clapped him on the shoulder.

"Look, you letting me get all somber and shit. What's wrong with you?" The grin was back, placed with some effort. "You ain't much a talker, are you?"

Daryl shook his head, offered a shrug.

"That's alright. Mami always told me I talk enough for three people to be quiet."

They drew near to a standing three-room tent, a neat fire pit, four folding camp chairs, and a camp kitchen set up outside of it. The fire was burning, a Dutch oven covered with the scorching coals, a skillet over the flames.

"Oh, I smell biscuits. Knew it was a good idea to come see them first." He grinned at Daryl, before turning around again, cupping his hand around his mouth. "Bobby Lee! Get your tired ass out here!"

"Who in the hell is yelling out there?" Came a voice from inside the tent, before a female's answered.

"Oh, you know good and well who it is."

She poked her head out first, strawberry blonde hair a mass of wild curls. She might have had a pair of shorts on, but it was hard to tell beneath the man's size shirt she wore, the short sleeves reaching down to her elbows, the hem down to almost her knees. An expression of surprise covered her face as she laid eyes on Daryl, glancing quickly between him and Mikey as she exited the tent, a tall, slender man with a shock of violently red hair exiting behind her.

"Oh, I'm fucking blind. Your half-dressed ass. Ain't you got a tan yet, son?"

The man scratched at his pale, freckled chest lazily, tried to comb his hair with his fingers into some semblance of acceptability. The woman giggled, reaching up to do the same as the man's head ducked some to allow it, succeeding in his original aim much quicker than he had.

"You kiss my half-dressed ass, ya little wetback. You know damned well I don't do nothing but burn."

Mikey snickered at him, their hands clapping together as they met in a firm handshake.

"Bobby Lee, Ruth, I got somebody I want you to meet." He turned, and with a grand flourish presented Daryl. "This is Daryl Dixon. Guess where he's from?"

"Kennesaw?" The woman asked quickly, approaching, offering a tiny hand to him. He took it carefully, uncomfortably, shook it with little more than the tips of his fingers. "You look so familiar."

The thought had niggled at him, Daryl realized, before it finally came to fruition.

"Ruth Miller?" The smile spread across her face, nodding quickly. "Your Daddy used to preach at Mountain Valley Baptist, didn't he? Used to see you greeting people at the door."

"Well, it's Ruth Ferguson now." She smiled broadly to him, holding out a hand in the direction of the red haired man. "This is my husband, Robert."

The man had just lit a cigarette, but rolled it to the corner of his lips quickly, offering a hand to Daryl, would accept nothing more than a firm shake.

"Though she's the only one that calls me Robert," he gave her an annoyed look, one as fake as a Vegas pair of tits, Daryl thought. "You can call me Bobby."

"Well, hell," Mikey said. "You met him before?" He asked Daryl.

"He wouldn't have." Bobby shook his head.

"Oh, that's right," Mikey answered, slapping Daryl's arm with the back of his hand. "He ain't like us. This one is a closet redneck."

Ruth laughed quietly to herself as she broke from them, slipping a funny-looking rubber mitten over her hand to tilt the lid of the Dutch oven sideways, peering within it, dumping the coals off of it, the scent of fresh bread making Daryl's stomach growl.

"You such an asshole," Bobby groused, moving to a camp chair, motioning behind him for Mikey and his reluctant companion to follow. Daryl trailed over, after a moment, sinking into one of the empty chairs, Mikey beside him not soon after.

Bobby looked to Daryl, taking another drag off his cigarette, pulling a pack out of his hip pocket and shaking one up, offering it to Daryl. It was a Light, but Daryl thought it rude not to accept, and took it with a nod of thanks.

He paused. When the hell had he ever worried about being rude?

A frown pulled at his lips as he set the cigarette between them, catching the plastic lighter the man tossed his way, lighting it quickly and chucking it back. The man caught it easily, depositing both items back into his jeans pocket.

"Now, what the midget is trying to say is that I've been unfortunate enough to be living in Atlanta high society for the last few years." He grinned as Mikey shot him a bird.

"He used to play for the Atlanta Philharmonic, ain't that right?"

Bobby nodded affirmatively. "Violin."

"So, we ain't doing too bad for ourselves, Dixon. We got us a guitar, a banjo, and a fiddle player. Friday nights is fun here." Mikey said, grinning to him again.

"You made it out of Atlanta. Betcha thought the County'd surely be better, right?" Daryl said softly, and the red-haired man gained a somber look, nodding carefully.

"That was, uh… that was exactly what I was thinking. By the time I got there, though… wasn't nobody left. None of my family."

"It spread fast," Daryl took a drag from the cigarette, wished he'd brought his own pack with him. He already felt like he needed another one. "It started with a story about a rash of 'incorrectly declared deaths'. Said people was showing up at funeral homes still alive. There was a story about a mortician that had opened one of the body bags. He said the old woman inside was so terrified that when she got her head out of the bag, she'd bit him.

"After that they started closing down the funeral homes, taping them off and boarding them shut. Then there was a couple of stories on the evening news about a new virus that was showing up in the Hospital, something like rabies, they said, high fever, delirium, seizures… Next couple of days and… bam. It was like a war zone. They was everywhere."

Robert nodded somberly, scratching at his head again.

"Any of your family make it out?" Ruth asked with a sad smile, pulling on another of the rubber mitts to remove the Dutch oven from the fire.

Daryl thought of the truth, but shook his head, found that easier, less painful.

"Me neither." Ruth said quietly, looking down to the perfectly browned biscuits, setting them aside carefully as she removed the top from the skillet placed on a grate over the fire, revealing the bubbling gravy inside. "I was taking care of my Daddy, and my brother… They came home from a funeral one Saturday, and Mark had a bite on his hand, and my Daddy's face was scratched. They wouldn't tell me what happened, but they were already getting sick, and later that night they… they passed away."

She looked over to Bobby, a loving, grateful expression emblazoned across her cherub-shaped face.

"Robert saved me. He heard me screaming, broke down the door. I never would have made it out of the house, without him."

Bobby snorted, though Daryl thought he heard a hint of a sniffle as he wiped at the sweat on his upper lip.

"You trying to make me out to be some Lone Ranger."

Daryl frowned thoughtfully.

"Thought you said you two was married."

"We are," Ruth said, nodding.

"But you just said you met during the Outbreak?"

"We did," she confirmed again, stirring the lake of gravy within the skillet. "The Chaplain married us, about.." she paused.

"It'll be a month two days from now." Bobby cut in, smiling at her fondly, though still a bit sadly.

"Didn't waste any time," Daryl said, eyebrows raised.

"Might be dead tomorrow. No time to waste. Chaplain's performing new marriages every day. Got ourselves six women in camp gonna be in labor by the end of the year, and one newborn already." Bobby looked to him seriously. "And if there's anybody you've got feelings for, I'd suggest you don't waste any time either."

Daryl frowned, staring at his cigarette thoughtfully.

OOOOOO

They asked them to stay for breakfast. Mikey remarked on the late hour, but Ruth and Bobby announced they'd had a night shift, the previous evening, and had only just woken themselves.

Daryl ate three plates of the biscuits with three slabs of fried country ham, little bits of the salt-cured bacon broken up into the gravy, and drank four cups of coffee. Ruth laughed at his appetite, and they sat and spoke, ate, and smoked and bickered as though they were all old friends.

Daryl found that he had smiled more in the last hour than he had in the last few years.

OOOOOO

Daryl left the Ferguson's campsite with a stretched belly, and an invitation to return at any time.

"They a cute couple," Mikey remarked, as they walked away, and Daryl laughed again, nodding.

He led Daryl through two more campsites, where they had to turn down invitations for lunch, an elderly man and his daughter, and a mixed couple. The young black woman's belly had already begun to stretch the plain white t-shirt she wore, Mikey making a great fuss over rubbing her stomach, calling it a Buddha belly and earning a playful slap for it.

Even with everyone's friendliness, Daryl soon found himself mentally exhausted. He couldn't remember having met so many new people since Merle and he had joined the Quarry camp, certainly not so many people who insisted that he join in on their conversations.

Mikey smiled at him.

"You look beat, man. You really ain't much on talking, huh?"

Daryl shook his head.

"Well, we only got one more place to go. You gonna like them, I think. They the kinda people they just give off good energy in waves, man." He clapped him on the shoulder for the twentieth time, and led him through the tents again.

The campsite was occupied by four tents of progressively smaller size, from a two room tent, to two domes, and a small pup tent. Several children milled around the edge of the site, kicking a soccer ball between them, a little girl playing with dolls perched on a small rock.

They all seemed so familiar, Daryl thought, before Mikey's voice broke through his reverie.

"Dupree! Get your giant ass out here! I got somebody I want you to meet!"

Daryl paused, the thought beginning to grow, swimming to the surface in his mind. _So familiar_…

The two room tent's door zipped up, a massive form practically crawling out of it as he ducked to exit. The man straightened, as tall as the highest point of the tent himself, and laid eyes straight on him.

Daryl's own eyes grew to the size of saucers, his stomach dropping like an elevator with a broken cable straight to his feet. He was staring at a dead man, a dead man. Merle had told him…

"Renee?"

The man stopped, tilted his head, narrowing his eyes as he approached, picking up speed, strides gigantic, and growing as he quickly approached.

"Daryl? Daryl Dixon? Is that your scrawny little ass!"

"You're alive," Daryl said, stumbling back but not making it far as Renee grabbed the straps of his wife beater, dragging him close, bellowing into his face.

"No thanks to you two! Where the fuck is he? Where is your brother?"

"Why?" Daryl practically squeaked, looking up at the man in confusion.

Mikey stood to the side, mouth wide open, proving no help at all.

Renee shook Daryl like a rag doll, the undershirt gaining a new rip near one strap.

"We were supposed to leave together. You left us there! Where the hell is he? Cause I'm gonna kill him!"


	15. Chapter 13

Author's Note:

Another short chapter (damned reticent muses), offering another look into Daryl's past. Took me long enough, right? :-D Warnings for recreational drug use.

OOOOOO

It had been 1995; he'd been newly 21, Merle not even 30 himself, one of his first legal excursions into a bar. The new Allison Krauss and Union Station had been playing over the speakers, and the sun was barely down on a muggy August night but he was already a few sheets to the wind. There'd been a pretty young girl, shy, not even legal herself judging from the Coke straight from the fountain the bartender had set in front of her. Pretty blonde hair, clear green eyes. She'd smiled sweetly at him and he'd felt his heart drop, had resolved to stumble past his nerves and unglue his tongue and just _say _something to her, maybe even ask her to dance.

She'd laughed, but not at him, looked away not coyly, but scared a little herself, and he'd wondered for a second if this was what he'd heard about, love at first sight. She wasn't alone, and in hindsight he should have known better than to believe that she might have been.

He'd come back in from outside, a massive son of a bitch, and his ponytail had been gray even then, though he was not yet 40 himself.

It was the first time Daryl had ever found himself flying over a bar, and sadly it would not be the last, but it was the only time he'd achieved such impressive distance, gone straight back over the counter, slamming into the back mirror, shattering it.

He'd only been dazed a moment, but it had been long enough for Merle to tear himself away from the pair of pants he'd been trying to work his way into.

All three of them had ended up in the parking lot, and Daryl had no clear memory of whether it had been the natural course of the brawl, or whether at some point the rather overwhelmed bouncers had somehow managed to corral them in that direction. It was obvious to everyone that there'd been no breaking it up, nor was either side about to back down anytime soon.

In the end he had laughed, and the earthshaking bellow had been enough to distract him from his haze of rage and hurt pride.

Merle had ended up on his back for the twentieth time in as many minutes, bleeding from his nose, his mouth, had spat out a molar that marked the first time anyone had succeeded in doing such a thing to his brother. Daryl had tried to make his feet, but made it little farther than his knees, due mainly to the fact that by this point he just couldn't quite see straight anymore.

"You just won't stay down," the man had barked at Merle, and his accent had been thicker then, when he'd been fresh from the bayou. "Now, what I can't figure out is whether dat makes you the bravest, or de _dumbest _bastard I ever stumbled acrosst."

He'd offered a hand to him, but Merle had only growled at him, making his way shakily to his feet on his own. The man had laughed again, and stepped away from him, offered his hand to Daryl. He'd stared at it for some time, not sure he wanted to grab onto something already splashed with his blood. He'd accepted it, finally, and Renee had laughed again.

"And you, you scrawny li'l sumbitch. You got to have de biggest pair o' balls I ever seen on a man your size."

They hadn't been fast friends; Daryl had started to like him about the time his head had stopped aching, but Merle had taken a little longer, mainly when he'd gotten a look at the pot plants the man had stashed in a tomato patch behind his trailer. Shit that could make your head spin, Daryl thought, and the pretty young girl he'd met that night grew into a pretty young woman as her stomach grew for the first time. One day he'd gotten over not having been the one to put a ring on Candace's finger, for he'd grown to realize how lucky she was, how much the man loved her, cherished her and the children they had together. She'd never wanted anything more in her life than being a wife and a mother, she'd whispered to him early on the first Christmas morning they'd all spent together.

He could hear Merle and Renee snoring from their respective ends of the trailer, and she'd come padding, barefoot and annoyed, from the bedroom, swollen little belly covered with her arm, white nightgown stained red and green with the reflected glow of the lights hung across the front porch.

"Can't sleep either?" Daryl had smirked at her, and she'd giggled quietly, accepted the small glass bowl he'd passed her way. Her nose wrinkled as she took a hit, forehead following suit as she sputtered and coughed afterwards. He'd laughed at her, and she'd punched him in the arm when he called her a lightweight.

"Don't usually smoke this stuff," she groused, Cupid's bow mouth curled in displeasure. "Only thing that lets me eat these days. I been so sick."

"Betcha it'll be a boy," Daryl answered, nodding his drunken, bobbing head with great gravity. "Mama said she was sick as a pup with me and Merle, but she wasn't that way with little Essie."

"I didn't know you had a sister," she replied, pulling the pipe more carefully this time, blowing it out smoothly. He grinned approvingly, did a fairly good job at masking the stab of pain he felt.

"I, uh… I don't. She was… stillborn, real early. But it was a little girl. Named her Elizabeth. Lived… lived long enough to open her eyes." He didn't tell her it had been a boot to the gut that had started the early labor, or about the blood, how his mother had collapsed into his doorway before she'd made it to the phone in her bedroom because he'd ripped the one in the living room out of the wall; how the little girl had been born and died in his bedroom floor, how his mother had begged God to give her child back, or how she'd bled for a week after they buried the little body together, grown pale and ghostly, before his father finally took her to the hospital.

She'd seen the tears in his eyes, too drunk to hide them, but she hadn't asked why, or laughed, had only hugged him tightly, innocently, and he'd buried his face into the crest of her shoulder and had done no more. Guillaume came first, then Bastian, then Philippa and Philippe. Merle had ribbed him mercilessly, but Renee had been in love from the first breath the little girl took, and Daryl couldn't blame him much.

He'd seen Essie in her, and loved her himself, and when Renee had made his request he could not have begun to find it in his heart to deny the man.

"I trust you two probably more than anyone in the world, but I trust his ass no farther'n I can t'row him." Renee had pointed at Merle, half-empty Bud can clutched in one massive paw. "Sumtin happens to me, I want you to look after dem, take care of dem for me."

He'd nodded, and those words had circled his brain over and over the day Merle had torn back into the drive in his empty truck, taking out three of the Walkers gathered on the front walk before he made it back into the house.

"Where the fuck are they?" he'd screamed, but Merle had only shook his head, and the silent motion had been enough to bring him to tears.

Merle had smacked him hard across the mouth, gripped him by the jaw so tight the twenty-seven year old line of fracture in his jaw began to ache like new.

"Don't you get weepy on me, you little son of a bitch. Should be happy," he barked, "All those rugrats wouldn'ta done nothing but slow us down. Come on. Let's get the fuck out of here."

OOOOOO

He stared at Renee, the man who'd been like a father, like a brother, a friend to him, through a thin film of blood. How did he not know? How could he not have recognized her? He'd seen Philippa, he realized, the day they'd found Sophia.

He ached, he hurt, he felt sure he could qualify for having been kicked the shit out of, but he didn't raise his hand, didn't fight back, couldn't for all the world bring himself to. Even if he could find the effort, he didn't think he would even succeed. No one had ever been able to, not even Merle.

He spat blood onto the ground, wiped carefully at the blood in his eyes, and made it, swaying in place, to his knees. He fell back onto his shoulder as a boot caught him square in the face, looked up sadly into the two black barrels of the sawed-off pointed square at his chest, and thought how shitty it was for it all to end right here, like this.

Crazily, he thought of Aleda, and that he'd never have a chance… He squeezed his eyes shut, and buried the thought.

"He lied to me," he whispered, and the man faltered, aim wavering.

"_You're _lying to me." The shotgun jabbed into his chest and he barely heard over the ringing in his ears the sound of Mikey's pleading voice, the sun blotted out for a moment by a patch of black.

"Put the gun down, Dupree, please. You ain't gonna do this."

"You knew what this little bastard done to me and mine you wouldn't doubt I'd do it."

"I didn't," Daryl whispered, ribs aching, licked at his split lip carefully, "He lied to me… Told me you were dead… all of you, dead. If I'd known…"

"You're just trying to save your own sorry ass," the man barked at him.

"I'm not," he said, louder this time. "I'm not, Renee… I swear to you," his voice cracked, but he never stopped to clear his throat. "I swear to you! On my Mama's grave, Renee, I swear it."

There were long minutes until the shotgun lowered, and he found his hand engulfed by one nearly three times the size of his own and dragged to his feet.

He swayed again, vision whiting out for a moment, shaking his head drunkenly.

"Where is he?" The bear of a man growled, and it was Daryl that shook his head this time.

"I don't know," he whispered brokenly, and the man's jaw shifted as his teeth ground together.

"Son of a bitch leave you, too?"

"He… he didn't wait for me." Daryl answered quietly, and shook his head.

He found himself trapped in an embrace by arms the size of tree trunks, squeezed so tight his bruised ribs screamed in utmost protest.

"Jesus Christ, Renee," he squeaked.

He'd been doing better when the man had been actively trying to kill him, he thought.


	16. Chapter 14

Author's Note:

This chapter took some real struggling to get out, but I finally did it. O_o Please forgive any typos, and I hope you enjoy.

OOOOOO

"What happened to the baby?" He whispered, and Candy smiled at him gently, though the horror was plain on her face as she wiped the blood from his forehead.

"He's a little butterball," Candy answered, fingers brushing carefully at the fringe of his hair.

"I didn't think," He began, and could not finish as his throat locked down.

"I didn't either," Candy squeaked, and wrapped him in her arms much more carefully than Renee had.

"Stop being such a girl." He groused, not returning the embrace, blinking hard, far too aware of the heat pricking at the backs of his eyes.

Candy laughed weakly, pulling back and looking down as her hands began to tremble.

"We heard Atlanta wasn't safe… People said that… Fort Benning _was _safe, that the Army was taking in evacuees. Think we… we musta broke every speed limit, in every county. Police were busy though. Nobody was watching. They already had their hands full. People was… wrecking everywhere, the _things_ was everywhere… But when we got there, when we got to Benning… it wasn't like we thought. There was supposed to be… 100,000 people or more… It was supposed to be a whole city… But almost all of the soldiers were gone already. They'd been sent out to Atlanta, and there was already talk… talk that they'd lost all contact. They made us park outside the gate, took our guns... sent us in by the truckload… I didn't think anything of it. They said we didn't need the guns, that we were safe. But we weren't," she whispered.

"I heard…" Daryl said softly.

"But you can't _imagine_. They started… it… it was a slaughter, Daryl. People were defenseless… They were killing _children_." Her voice cracked and she covered her mouth quickly. "There was so much gunfire… from everywhere. We tried to hide. Thought if we could just get away from the soldiers we'd be alright. But… people were going down, Daryl… but they were getting right back up. The one's that they shot in the chest, and the stomach, the ones they didn't shoot in the head… They got _up_, Daryl, they came right _back."_

Renee stepped forward, laying a hand gently on her shoulder but she jerked away from him.

"Are you alright, Daryl?"

"I'm fine. Right as rain." He answered lightly.

"Liar." Candy snapped, shooting a glare at Renee, who glowered and crossed his arms over his barrel-chest, backing away reluctantly.

Daryl laughed carefully, hid a wince as best he could as she dabbed delicately at his bottom lip with a damp rag.

"Where the hell's Donovan at?" Renee grumbled.

"The Adams' child got into a packet of Reese's again." Candy answered, flatly.

"Jesus Christ. Doesn't that boy realize he's allergic to peanuts?"

"He's five years old, Renee. All he sees is chocolate," Candy answered, narrowing her eyes at him again. "Donovan's going to be busy for the next hour or so, giving him his shots. Aleda's coming by."

"Jesus Christ," he growled again. "Why in the hell'd you go and tell her for? She's gonna have my ass for this."

"You shoulda thought of that before you tried to kill him. You know the rules."

"He had his reasons," Daryl whispered. "Don't want you two fighting. Ain't worth it."

"Bullshit," Candy snapped again, shooting a glare at him next. "He shoulda thought of that, too."

"Darlin'," Renee began, aghast.

"Don't you 'darling' me. You oughta be ashamed of yourself, Renee Dupree. Ever even think that way about him. I told you… I told you there was a reason. You wouldn't believe me. Why trust my word? I'm just your wife!"

"Please," Daryl cut in.

"Daryl?"

He didn't recognize the voice at first; his eyes swiveled slowly, following the sound. He found a familiar face, though one that had changed so much. Guillaume balanced Philippa on one hip, and the distrustful expression the little girl bore seemed enough to break his heart.

"Jesus… it's only been a couple of months. How could you've grown so much?"

He pushed off from the rock Candy had placed him upon, ignored with some effort her protestations, and the fact the world began spinning again as soon as he made his feet.

"You left us," Philippa whispered, tiny bottom lip quivering.

"No," he shook his head, limped toward them slowly, reaching out for her. "No, baby girl."

"Daddy said so," she sounded watery, curling tightly against her brother's side, away from him. Her eyes glittered with tears.

"Daddy was wrong." Renee answered, stepping over.

"What?" Philippa asked, looking to Renee as though she had never heard of such a thing.

"Uncle Daryl just got lost, baby. That's all. He couldn't find us. But he's found us now. Ain't that right?" Renee looked between the two of them, and Daryl nodded, reaching for her again.

"I knew it," Guillaume whispered, "I knew it. I knew you wouldn't leave us on purpose. Merle maybe, but not you. I knew there was some reason."

"Told me you were all dead. Lied… said he'd gone to get you, but the place was overrun."

"Oh, he came alright," Renee frowned deeply. "Came, took a pound of my best shit and spun fucking gravel. Probably only thing he didn't lie about."

The lip quivered faster, the tears finally spilling from the little girl's eyes as she leapt away from Guillaume and straight for Daryl. His own knees buckled as her bony little knees dug into his ribs, arms latching around his neck, would have fallen to the ground again had Guillaume not rushed forward to grab onto his arm.

"Look just like your Daddy." Daryl managed, looking up at him. "You grew so much."

"I am almost 17 now. Couldn't stay little forever." Guillaume whispered in return.

"You're gonna hurt him, Philippa." Came another voice before the little girl let go and Daryl did his best to slow her descent, ribs screaming again.

"Bastian."

"I didn't believe it either." The thirteen year old shook his head resolutely. "Thought you were dead, maybe. Never thought you left us."

"There's something you could learn about _faith _in people, Renee." Candy snapped.

OOOOOO

"Alright. Which one of ya'lls brats gotten scraped up again?"

Her voice was jovial, but her eyes were tired, the exhaustion plain on her face. Her eyebrows raised as her gaze fell across him.

"What in all the circles of hell happened to you?"

"_He_ happened to him." Candy snarled, glaring again and jabbing a finger at her husband.

"He ain't even been in camp two whole days, Renee, what in the hell could he have done to you in that time?"

"It was just a misunderstanding." Daryl put in quickly.

"Hell of a misunderstanding." Aleda snapped, the amusement gone from her expression, eyes flashing hard and flat again as they cut toward Renee, back to him, returned to Renee again. "Ain't enough I got Morrison skulking around the edge of camp like a scalded cat, but you gonna go and give him something to say. What in the hell you think he's gonna do when he finds out about this?"

"It ain't the same thing." Renee began.

"He ain't gonna see it that way. You know the rules as well as anyone, and you know damn well Morrison and his malcontents is the reason for it. _Infighting is punishable by death. _Now I got one of two choices. I follow my own rules and lose one of the best shots I got on the line, or I overlook this and open a whole fucking different can of worms."

"John raped a woman, shot her husband. This was just a scuffle. It ain't the same situation." Renee said again.

"And Morrison still ain't gonna see it that way, Dupree." Aleda repeated. "Way he looks at it, Charlene was asking for it, and I murdered his brother without justification, in cold blood. I cannot afford to pick favorites, Renee, but you making it real fucking difficult for me to do otherwise, cause I can't afford to lose you. I'm sure your eldest'd be quick to fill in, but I'm better off with two of you than I am with one, you understand?" Her lips pressed together, a thin white line.

She knelt before Daryl, placed her fingers carefully on his jaw, turned his head from side to side. His stomach dropped, and he winced at the contact, shied away.

"Jesus…" she muttered, shaking her head in disgust. "Look here… Follow my finger. I'm sure you know the routine." She passed her finger back and forth, up and down. His eyes slipped in and out of focus, the pain sharp and stabbing. He felt dizzy, sick to his stomach. He felt worse than he had in the early morning.

He hadn't even thought that_ possible_.

"Nothing wrong with your peripheral vision. Doesn't look like there's any real damage to that eye. But you gonna look like one of the freaks for a few days. Got yourself some busted blood vessels over here." She shook a finger to the right side of his face.

She pulled a small flashlight from her thigh pocket, raising it and shining it into either eye, and for a moment he felt sure he was going to empty the contents of his stomach right into her lap.

"You also got yourself a blown pupil. You, my friend, have got a good old fashioned concussion, and a damned good one by the look of it. Which means _you _gonna be filling in for him till Donovan clears him for duty." Her eyes shot back to Renee, who'd begun to open his mouth. "I don't even wanna hear it. You work sixteen hours a day? You get no days off? You're tired? You miss your family? Oughta give you something to think about next time you decide to put your hands on somebody. Can't have you taking out my gunhands every time you hit a fit of pique, Renee. You're damned lucky you didn't kill him. We wouldn't be havin' this conversation at all. I wouldn't had a choice."

"Here I was thinking I was gonna get myself some good sleep tonight," Aleda muttered, "Now ain't none of us gonna get any sleep. Cause you got yourself a night shift that's gonna run all the way till 4 o'clock tomorrow, and it's gonna have to be between me and Donovan to be by to wake him up every hour."

"I can take care of that, Aleda," Candy began softly, but the brunette shook her head as she looked back to her.

"No, you can't. You got a job more important than any o' ours... You're nursing a child. You need your rest. I'd say I'm better off, but apparently I got a whole damned camp full of children I gotta look after." Her eyes narrowed as she looked in Renee's direction again. "And what in the hell you waiting for? Best get to sleep."

Renee muttered something himself, but finally gave a sharp nod.

OOOOOO

She leaves soon after, but leaves behind a few more of the coral pills.

"You eating up all my painkillers, son." She grumbles softly enough that only he can hear, but he thinks he hears a trace of amusement, thinks he can see the shadow of concern even in the slate of her gaze.

She puts some sort of salve over his wounds. It smells like animal fat and green things, tastes like shit, and stings like a bitch.

"This is gonna have to do. You gonna have to be content with the old ways, young buck," she says, "Can't be wasting the silvadene on every little cut and scrape. We gonna need it one day, and not have it."

"'Nother one of Daddy's prescriptions?" He mutters in return, and she smiles softly at him.

"That's right."

From the corner of his eye, he sees Candy watching him, thinks nothing of it until Aleda leaves, and she sidles up next to him.

"Well," she says, grinning at him.

He narrows his eyes carefully.

"Well, what?"

"I think she likes you."

The frown etches deeper into his face.

"Why would you say that?"

"Way she looks at you. Way she talks to you. Friendly."

He raises an eyebrow, winces, regrets it immediately.

"She ain't usually friendly?"

"She's always cordial. But she's only friendly to the people she knows." She smiles pointedly at him, and he stares blankly back at her. She rolls her eyes, giving a long-suffering sigh.

"That's just it. She treats you like she knows you already. You just as dense as a live-oak, Daryl Dixon, you can't see that yourself."

She clucks her tongue, disgustedly.

"Here I am talking like somehow that ain't always been the case. You never could see farther than the end of your own nose."

"What in the hell you babblin' about?" he grouses.

"You've always been that way. Had women throwing themselves at you, left and right, and never saw a damn thing but the bottom of your own bottle."

"Candy," he admonishes, and she glares right back at him.

"I am thirty-five years old, Daryl, I ain't _five_. I'll say whatever I want, and I'll cuss if I damned well please," she sniffs, tilting her chin haughtily.

"Hardly think she's throwing herself anywhere. Just met her," he mutters.

"That ain't stopped anybody lately. Pickings is slim these days, you haven't noticed. You find somebody you like outta who's left, that ain't something to waste a second thought on."

Why in the _hell_, he thinks, does everybody keep telling him that?

OOOOOO

"Has anybody seen Daryl?" Carol asked softly.

Lori looked up from Carl's schoolbook, mouth quirking as she shook her head.

"I haven't seen him since last night, come to think of it. It hardly makes any difference. He's always wandering off somewhere."

Carol frowned. "He can't have gone far. There's only so many places he can go. You don't… you don't think he's left, do you?"

"Don't imagine he'd be allowed to." Rick put in, crouching near the fire to wash his hands in the pan of water beside it. "Aleda seemed fairly adamant on having everyone accounted for at all times. All of his things are still here. I'm sure he'll be back when he's ready, Carol."

"Maybe he's out talking to somebody. I'd like to talk to somebody. I think we're all tired of seeing the same old faces. I know you know what I'm talking about" T-Dogg answered, pointing to Andrea and grinning.

"I know who you been talking to." He finished, waggling his eyebrows, and it was all Lori could do not to burst out laughing. He couldn't quite sit straight, and his head kept bobbing from side to side, kept scratching absently at his neck and the fresh white bandage on his forearm.

"Are you alright?" Carol asked, concerned.

T-Dogg grinned, eyes slanting shut.

"I'm fine. I'm just fine. Gave me a shot of antibiotics. Donnegal… Donnebun… Whatever… whoever he was."

Lori clapped a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking with laughter.

"You know I had a blood infection? I had sick blood. Ain't that some shit," he slurred, leaning Andrea's way again, who despite her best efforts let out a snort of her own.

_Morphine_, Lori mouthed to Carol behind a hand, gesturing to her own arm.

"Oh," Carol breathed, "Maybe you should go lay down, honey."

"Nah, nah… I'm fine. Just fine," T-Dogg repeated, and Rick smiled to himself as he made his way away from them and toward his tent.

"This has gotta be them," came a deep voice. "Ain't never seen them before." He looked over, and laid eyes on one of the biggest men he'd ever seen his life, two teenagers and a child trailing behind him.

"You," the man pointed at him, stepping forward with impossibly long strides. "Want you to tell me which tent is Dixon's."

"Who the hell are you?" Shane was there, where previously he had not been, drawing himself up to his full height, still a dwarf by comparison, adjusting his Police cap on his head again.

"Well, well," the man chuckled. "Look at you, you banty rooster little motherfucker. Don't remember asking _you_ a goddamn thing, pig. Don't make me black your other eye, boy."

"Shane," Rick said quietly.

"Ain't anybody gonna answer me?" The man looked between them.

"It's… it's right there, Mr. Dupree." Sophia said quietly, pointing.

"Little Miss Peletier," the man gave her a somber nod, the little girl smiled softly in return.

"This is my Mama."

"Mrs. Peletier." Renee nodded, stepping forward and offering his hand, taking Carol's in both of his as she tentatively returned the gesture. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I know my wife'd like to do the same. Our little girl's taken quite a liking to yours. Ya'll are welcome by our camp anytime, alright now?"

He raised his bushy eyebrows at Sophia, who smiled brightly and nodded in return.

"Go on now." He turned away from Sophia, throwing an arm out at the boys behind him. "Go and pack up your Uncle Daryl's things."

The word had reached T-Dogg's ears, even through his opiate haze. His face was the color of a dead fish, Rick thought suddenly, bloodless and gray.

"Now… what I really want to know…" His gaze swiveled back to Rick, "Is which one of you is responsible for leaving Merle Dixon on that rooftop in Atlanta?"

Rick could certainly understand.

He was feeling a little dead himself.


	17. Chapter 15

Author's Note:

Unedited. Please forgive typos. A short interlude dealing with some characters other than Daryl and Aleda.

OOOOOO

He looked between them, standing all as frozen as statues, and raised his eyebrows higher.

"Once again, no one has anything to say. I'm asking a question, and all I get is blank looks. He didn't put himself up there, did he? Did he?" he pressed.

"Look," Rick began, stepping forward, "I'm sure you're upset to find this out—"

"You don't know what I am, and don't go pretending you do," Renee snapped, taking a step of his own. It brought them considerably closer together than even Rick's infamously long-legged stride had. Lori couldn't breathe. T-Dogg looked well on his way to an apoplexy.

Andrea was fed up.

"You've got no idea what happened up there. He was high, out of his mind. He was taking… fucking potshots just for the hell of it. They were everywhere, and he was drawing them right to us!"

"So, you're trying to tell me he deserved to be left up there, to be eaten alive, or to die of thirst, or maybe just to bleed to death, any of those options, he'dve deserved it? Why don't you just tell the truth?" He wheeled on them, looked between each of their faces. "Why don't you just come out and say it? You wanted him dead."

"That is _not _what we're saying." Rick argued.

"It would be if you had any sense!" Renee bellowed.

"Jesus!" T-Dogg yelled in return. "I can't hide from what I did. I panicked, and I dropped the damned key! It's my fault he got left up there. Rick left the key with me and I dr—What?"

The words had finally sunk in, and T-Dogg looked helplessly between Renee and Rick, as though either one of them might be able to offer some clarification that he desperately needed.

"Well," Renee smirked, crossing his arms over his chest. "I got to say I'm a little disappointed in you. I'dve hoped you'd dropped the key on purpose."

"What?" T-Dogg repeated.

"That man, and I hesitate to even use that word… That worthless, leaching sack of shit, was a pall on anyone unfortunate enough to know him. He left my family to die, though he'd promised we'd all leave together. He's never in his life thought of more than his own wants and needs. Daryl'd never admit it, not even to himself, but losing that selfish bastard was probably the best thing to ever happen to him, and for that, I'd like to shake your hand."

T-Dogg's transformation into a fish was complete, Rick thought, as he opened and closed his mouth several times, unsuccessfully searching for the words. Rick watched his hand disappear in the Louisianan's. The man looked back to him next, and offered his hand. Rick swallowed, but accepted the handshake finally, firmly.

"The name is Dupree."

"I'm sorry but… how did you know…"

"The Dixon brothers? I've known them nigh on seventeen years, since the boy was _truly_ a boy. Every dealers got his supplier," He said with a rakish grin. Lori gasped and covered Carl's ears.

OOOOOO

It wasn't like he could hide it.

His eyes were black, and his cheeks swollen, but at least his nose wasn't broke. One thing about it, no motherfucker had ever broken it, and to tell the truth, he was vain about it. His lip was split, no two ways about it, but it was holding together. She'd glued it shut, and the disgusting paste of herbs she'd put on it had done its job. The memory of her fingertips on his lips lingered in his mind, whether he liked it or not.

"My God, Daryl… what happened to you?"

He gave a patented casual shrug, still stiff with the pain of his ribs, had never felt more like a whipped dog in that moment than at any time in his life; the feeling had been a frequent one.

"It ain't nothing. Just a long story." He replied, voice meant to be gruff, sounding little more than petulant and whining to his own ears.

"Yeah. Ain't they always," Shane gave in his flatland Georgia drawl, perched in his camp chair by the fire again. Had the man even moved? "Probably running his mouth."

He'd never been fond of the cop, but the little love he held for him was growing less and less every day. Daryl knew what he was. For all his hatred of his brother, Shane was just like him. He was a loose cannon, and he felt for a moment that that the inexorable aim of it kept coming straight for him.

He never had a chance to respond; for Rick had already leaned forward and on his face was a small smile but his voice the quietest, most serious snarl Daryl had ever heard exit his mouth.

"I've had about enough out of you. You seem to want to start a fight. But you know what she said, about fighting. Just like before, with Renee. You got this… hatred for 'em, and disdain, and I don't even know you anymore because of it.

"This is the best situation we could find ourselves in, Shane, and you screw this up for us, there will be problems." Rick said flatly, and Shane looked as though he'd been slapped in the face.

"They a bunch of criminals, buncha dope dealers, all of them. Sons'a'bitches we used to throw in lockup everyday. Now we gotta live peaceably by them, associate with them like they're normal, worthy people? They ain't. They're trash."

"Ya always made that clear," Daryl snapped.

"This is gonna end, right now." Rick gritted out, staring hard at Shane.

"Well, as much as I'm sure he's grateful to some of you for doing right by 'im, he belongs with his own people. Even trash has got to stick together, right?" a colossal palm slapped remarkably gently at his back, even as Daryl shot him a glare, and Renee passed it on to Shane.

"Come on, boys." He said to the children.

"No. It's him we're grateful to." Rick answered, staring at Shane again. "Plenty of things we couldn't have done without him."

"And plenty went wrong with him involved, didn't it? Trying to save that piece of shit Merle Dixon… we lost half of us. One night. You made that decision, man, that's your responsibility."

"That's enough, Shane," Rick growled, and Shane scowled in return, but said no more.

"My, my… what is it I've walked into?" It was an easy voice, amiable and charming with its faint Irish lilt. "Dixon, Dupree, good morning."

The man offered his hand, and though he bore a questioning look on his face, said nothing. Daryl and Renee returned the gesture.

"You're leaving?" Carol asked weakly, her hands wringing the already dry wash cloth in her fingers.

Renee turned back, and offered her a gentle smile half-lost in his shaggy gray beard.

"Ain't but across the camp. Come to see him every day if you'd like, Mrs. Peletier. My wife would like it herself, I think."

Daryl looked supremely uncomfortable, but finally nodded, eyes cast toward the ground, and shouldered his empty rucksack for the second time that day.

"Rest o' your clothes still down by the river, you said?" Renee asked, and Daryl nodded again as the group trailed away.

Murphy smiled ruefully at Shane, a dark eyebrow arched beneath the straight fringe of his hair.

"Sounds like you're making all sorts of friends around here…"

Shane stiffened, his jaw opening, but Rick interrupted again, trying for polite, sounding more annoyed than anything.

"Can I help you?"

"Not you, I'm afraid. My business today is with Lady Andrea." He turned and gave an exaggerated bow. "Each of you will be receiving such a visit, though not from me. She is, however, the first name on the training schedule. Everyone over the age of 15 has been drafted, like it or not."

"Training?" Andrea asked, and Lori could already see a faint blush in her cheeks.

Carl grimaced, wiggled, and shoved away his mother's arms. She had forgotten her hold on him.

"Gun training. You've got that cannon, and not much experience with it, I'd wager."

"Gun training?" Carl chirped, scrambling to his feet. "Will I get to learn?"

"No, you will not," Lori snapped.

"Yes, he will, I'm afraid." The eyebrow arched again. "This is the world we live in, Mrs. Grimes. If you want your son to see his twentieth birthday, a pop shot is exactly what he needs to be. Years of experience behind a firearm is what he needs, and his training needs to begin now. Around camp, we wish to start them earlier, but we must work with what we have, yes?"

"No," Lori shook her head, mouth hanging open. "He's far too young."

"Lori," Rick began quietly.

"No!" She shouted.

Murphy held up both hands.

"An argument is not what I wanted to start. I merely came to fetch my pupil. A good day to all of you. My lady?" He gave a grin to Andrea, offering his arm.

Shane made a great show of huffing and rolling his eyes, as Andrea accepted it, and the pair walked away.

OOOOOO

"So you're from Boston?"

"Getting curious, are we?" He drawled, grinning at her.

She struggled to answer, the blush beneath her tan strong nonetheless.

"Not originally_. Bhí mé i héileacaptar píolótach in Arm na bhFórsaí Cosanta. Rugadh mé i mBaile Átha Cliath._"

"What?" She asked, brow furrowed.

He grinned widely.

"I said I was born in Dublin. I've been a helicopter pilot since 1987, in the Army… The largest branch of the Irish Defence Forces. Things… happened… my father and my brother… We came to America under fake papers."

He dug into his back pocket, withdrew a military ID.

"Murphy MacManus? But I thought you said your name was…"

"Yes," he nodded. "Aengus is my real name. When I came to America… well… it seemed a quick way to get my official citizenship, joining your Army."

"Must have been some good papers, making it past the government," Andrea offered, eyebrows raised.

"You spend enough money, you can get whatever you want," he grinned at her, glancing sideways as they walked.

"Money… is that part of the reason you had to leave the country?"

"Something like that." He murmured, smoothing his fringe down onto his forehead.

Along the western edge of camp, a series of plyboards had been decorated with human size targets, the heads of each riddled with small holes and splatters of paint.

"What is that?" Andrea asked, staring at the targets.

"Paintball marks." He answered easily, opening a large metal trunk with a padlock.

"Paintball guns? You're going to train me with paintball guns?"

"And airsoft pistols," he grinned at her. "It won't give you quite the same effect. No real kick to it… but that will come with time, and practice."

The frown was obvious on her face.

"What am I six?"

He smirked, setting the Angel AR:K on the opened lid of the trunk.

"You don't understand do you? We have more AR's than people can use them. You have two choices: learn to shoot, or learn to cook. Everyone has a purpose. You don't want to protect, you're... scared... Then don't train."

Her eyebrows raised further.

"Let me lay out a little math for you, _fionn_. At the time of the Infection, the population of Georgia was approximately 9,815,210 people… This state has 59,441 square miles. Now say that by some miracle one percent of the population survived, and is still alive out there, that is 98,152, which still leaves 9,717,058 of those freaks wandering around out there. That means that in any one square mile of this state we can expect to find between 1 and 163 Eaters waiting for us. If you honestly think that I'm going to waste one round of live ammunition on target practice in this situation we find ourselves in… you're not only insane, you're _much_ dumber than you look."

Andrea frowned deeper, but accepted the weapon.


	18. Chapter 16

Author's Note:

I'm baaacckkk. In the time I've been gone, I've changed states. The move has been stressful, to say the least, but I've finally forced myself to get my mind back on my story. Here's hoping you haven't forgot about it! :-D Hope you enjoy, and please review. It's muse food.

Unedited. Please forgive.

Daryl suffers beneath unwanted pressure, and the camp receives some unwanted visitors.

OOOOOO

The sun felt hot on her bare shoulders, yet somehow the rough palms of his hands felt much hotter. He directed her arms, straightened her posture, pressed her cheek to the stock.

He seemed like a furnace, she could feel the heat radiating from his body, close against her back, but not touching.

She wished he was, the thought idly passed.

"Now, fire."

There was the rush of compressed air. The red of the paintball hit the target, just to the right of the figure's head.

"Good."

She huffed loudly, lowered the paintball gun.

"I didn't even hit it."

"You would have grazed the temple. For a first time, it's not bad. Believe me. Some people I've trained, their first time… They can't even hit the target. You're one step ahead, in that regard."

"Grazing isn't good enough. One step ahead isn't good enough." She snapped, and he grinned at her, unperturbed.

"Then fire again."

His arms squeezed at her shoulders again, and she shivered as his palms ran down her back, squared her hips up.

"Is that necessary?" She tried to glare, glancing over her shoulder at him. He grinned again, glancing at her sideways as she turned her head.

"Not necessarily." His fingertips squeezed at her hips, tightly for a moment, the rough of his cheek brushed against the side of her neck, and she gasped softly, felt cold on her skin as his touch left her.

She had no idea how she even hit the target.

OOOOOO

The fire crackled near him, the percolator on the grate beginning its familiar rumble for the evening coffee. He felt heavy and lazy, full and content. His head still ached vaguely, and his ribs insistently with any breath that ventured upon deep, but it was not so horrible where he sat, leaning carefully back against a stump. More careful than his posture, however, was the grip he maintained on the tiny bundle in his arms, which, despite his protestations, Candy had placed there.

"Don't be silly, Daryl. It wasn't that long ago that I couldn't tear Phillipa away from you. I'm sure you remember what you're doing. Just hold him for a little while. Unless you want to wash all the dishes yourself?"

He'd half-considered saying yes, but she had already turned and bustled off, out of reach. He'd faced Walkers, Merle, even a particularly pissed-off mother bear once in his life, but had never once been so utterly terrified. Adrian seemed perfectly oblivious to his discomfort, however, and giving a little snort, had promptly burrowed against his chest, and fallen quickly back to sleep.

Candy smiled at him through the steam rising from the pan of rinsing water that she ran the dishes through.

"You should get used to it, Daryl. It might not be so far off that you're holding one of your own."

"Jesus, Mom," Guillaume moaned. "You've been spending too much time with Aleda."

Daryl raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Well, I mean… she means well. And I guess she has a point. Most of us are dead… it might be a good idea to start thinking about trying to build the population back up."

"I'm… lost." Daryl said, after another moment.

"It's not like she forces anyone… but I think it's pretty fair to say that she encourages it. For people to get together… to have kids. She says that it's not enough that we subsist for the present. We have to start thinking about the future, that we have a goal to work toward. She says, we're safe, we have a doctor and a midwife… that everyone should think of at least producing one child to replace them in the event that something happens to them. If we just keep existing… eventually we won't exist anymore."

He admired her, he had to admit it. They had lived so long, hand to mouth, on the outside (he found it very strange that he had already begun to think of it as the outside, the world beyond the fences) that the idea of having enough, having extra, having enough to dream of a next generation, seemed like a fantasy. But all around him he saw plenty, happiness where he had only seen dread, hope for a future where he had seen only defeat.

Rick had given up, had admitted it at the CDC, but Daryl never had. He had always known that whatever happened, he would be fine. He knew how to make it on his own, had done so for years. In the end, was the new crisis so different from the old one? People were still scraping by, fighting for their lives. Only now it wasn't a mortgage payment, electric bills, it was food and safety, and somehow Daryl could understand that, could deal with that much more easily. At some point, however, it had changed for him.

He would not say that the idea of being alone was frightening: often he felt that being with the others was more terrifying than the herd on the highway had been. All of these people, expecting something from him… and yet somehow, he had perhaps begun to crave it. He remembered the trust, the approval that Aleda had showed him, the belief that Candy had in him, how Rick had looked to him as though he had some worth within the group. It was strange, something he could barely understand, but he… wanted it. When had he begun to care for them? This pack of strangers that he owed nothing to, who owed nothing to him? When had he begun to mean something to them?

Adrien shifted, tiny little nose screwing up, the beginning of a wail on his lips. Daryl shifted his grip swiftly, setting the child upright against his shoulder, bouncing him lightly.

He saw it, before she opened her mouth, the smirk blatant on her lips.

"Shut up," he mumbled, and returned to rubbing the tiny back. Guillaume's form shook with silent laughter. At least he had the decency to be discreet about it, Daryl thought.

"I think it's terrible. She's working so hard at playing matchmaker, and she loves children so much. She would be a wonderful mother, but she doesn't have anybody for herself. And it's not for lack of my trying."

"Mom," Bastion groaned around a mouthful of cornbread as he rounded the edge of his tent, dribbling a soccer ball lazily between his feet as he walked.

"Well, it's just awful. It's not fair at all," Candy contested. "She's such a good person, and she takes care of all us. Is it so much to ask that somebody take care of her?"

"I don't think she can." Guillaume said quietly, and shrugged when Candy cast a questioning look of her own. "I don't think she knows how to do that. Let herself be taken care of. Russel Morrison says she's stand-offish, and uppity, and that's why his family don't like her, but I don't think it's true. I think she's scared. I can kinda understand it. If you… get close to someone… that's just more that you have to lose in the end. Maybe she thinks she's better off… better at her job, if she stays by herself."

"What do you think?" Candy turned back to him, sweet lips curled into a frown.

Daryl nearly choked, shook his head carefully.

"I wouldn't know. Don't know her well enough."

"Maybe you _should_ get to know her." Candy said after a moment, a scheming gleam in her eye that made Daryl distinctly nervous.

"Mom!" Guillaume and Bastion groaned in unison. "Leave him alone."

"Leave me alone!" Candy countered. "Why wouldn't it be a good idea? At least I'd know for sure what kind of person she was dealing with. I wouldn't have to worry about her."

"I don't think you got to worry about her, Mom," Bastion rolled his eyes.

Candy waved a dismissive hand at him, turning back to Daryl as she dried the last pot and laid it carefully within its tote.

"And you'd be just perfect for her. You're just her type, I think."

"How would you know?" Guillaume persisted.

"Girls talk, you know. And you know that Grant fellow, from Atlanta, he tried his best to court Aleda, and she wouldn't have nothing from him."

"He's a lawyer, he's useless." Guillaume snorted.

"And that's exactly what she said. She said she couldn't have any respect for him, and that she had enough to take care of without taking care of some spoilt little city boy. Now does that sound anything like our Daryl? And I know she's not seeing anyone. You know, Maureen lives closest to her, she says she never even sees anyone come over to her tent, much less spend the night. But she's healthy, and attractive… The poor girl must be lonely."

"Oh God, Mom," Guillaume slapped a hand over his eyes. "I do not even want to begin to think about what she does in her tent at night, and you shouldn't be concerned about it either."

"I just don't think it's right. She is getting older, you know. She doesn't have very much longer to be starting a family. That must cross her mind. You're a very handsome man, Daryl, you'd make beautiful children, and if you think that hasn't crossed her mind somehow, you're wrong."

"You're embarrassing him! You're embarrassing me!" Bastion snapped, and Candy gave a long-suffering sigh.

"Fine. I won't talk about it anymore."

A hawk flew over. Squirrels chittered angrily in the trees. Daryl, desperate to look anywhere but at Candace, watched clouds move lazily across the sky, the sun shining in patches through the trees beyond the fencing.

"Nothing's changed," he whispered, Candy looking to him curiously. "The world. We all… think it's over. But to them… nothing's changed. The big picture hasn't even changed focus. There are predators out there, and it's only new to us, nothing else is surprised by that. Life… goes on. Even in death."

A great cloud of birds exited the trees, and a shot rang out to his left. Silence fell over the camp, before another report echoed off the camping trailer several tents behind them. Daryl stood awkwardly, dizzily, shading his eyes against the sun, clutching Adrien against his chest. The child wailed in protest.

There was a rush of activity on the far side of camp, the sounds of dozens of boots beating at the earth. Guillaume made his feet, nearly tripping in his haste to reach the tent he shared with Bastion, drawing from within it the Winchester Model 70 Daryl had bought him when he'd turned 13.

"Walkers!" Came the pealing cry, and Daryl knew it to be Rick's voice.

"Daryl, you shouldn't," he heard Candy as he passed his burden off to her, and then, lost in the crowd, he heard no more.

OOOOOO

They came from the north, filtering out of the trees as though in formation, a phalanx of rot and hunger. The scent of them reached her nose, burned her eyes as though she were peering into a bucket of bleach. She coughed, gagged, and fired again.

"West, west!" Came the cry, and Aleda looked down the fence line to see yet more stumbling up the road, tripping and crawling over their fallen comrades. They'd followed the bird, she thought, and the caravan, in from the highway. They'd had days of quiet, not even a straggler. It had been too much to hope that they might have some extended period of peace.

She heard more voices, saw Murphy and the blonde tear up from the shooting range, saw the new arrivals off to the left, Rick, and T-Dogg, the Asian boy, and the one with the mouth, mounting the trailers.

"Go, go, go!" She heard Phillips screaming, saw her soldiers shimmying up ladders, standing shoulder to shoulder between the tents and trailers, the clatter of gunfire echoing endlessly.

"Get it off auto!" She screamed at someone, she did not know who, and then, "Get them off the gates! They're bunching!"

She heard the creak of straining metal, and of wood, and then the blare of the air horn as someone signaled for the retreat.

"Jesus Christ." She muttered, throwing the strap across her chest. The ladder slid smooth between her feet, and her ankles jolted as she hit the ground, the rifle slamming hard against her back.

"Center of camp! Move it! Go!" She screamed and shoved, attempted to corrall the mass of cattle, frightened and stupid, that was a crowd in the midst of panic.

She fought against the flow of them: gunhands running for the line, the jostle of shoulders and arms and elbows beating past her.

"Get 'em in!"

She saw the blonde again, rushing for the front with the Ladysmith clutched awkwardly in her hands.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going!?" She screamed, the woman nearly baring her teeth in response as Aleda shoved her back.

"I can help!"

"You can waste your ammo, and get in the fucking way, is what you can do."

It was the wrong thing to say, she realized after it left her mouth. She didn't have time for an argument. She pushed at her shoulder again, sent her back several paces.

"Get them in the middle of camp. Watch after the others. If they get through those gates, you're gonna do more good with them than you are on the line, you understand me? Go!"

The woman hesitated, finally flinched as Aleda screamed again. She nodded roughly, took several steps back as she stuck the Ladysmith into her waist band, and spun on her heel. She saw Carol and Sophia, Grimes' wife and their son. She watched the woman go down, nearly trampled beneath the mob before Andrea caught hold of her hand and dragged her back to her feet, disappearing into the multitude again.

She could watch no longer, and turned back to the line.

"Sonsabitches!" she snarled, barely feeling the rungs of the ladder beneath her soles as she rushed atop a trailer. "Can't even catch a fucking nap around here."

"Didn't get your beauty sleep?" A mocking voice came in from the right, and Aleda realized too late which camper she'd climbed atop. Morrison.

He wasn't worth the time and attention. She slotted the stock of the M16 against her shoulder, and took aim.

She never got her next shot off.

She felt a body contact hard between her shoulder blades, her breath forced from her lungs, and felt her weight shifting forward too late to stop it. The edge of the roof slipped under the toes of her boots, and she was falling. Her boot laces caught in the razor wire, her face and chest scrubbed hard across the barbs, her vision going red immediately, and for a moment the world felt frozen: through the haze she saw, and thought that the freaks were nearly to the fence line, nearly to her.

The ground rushed up to meet her, her head and shoulders slamming into the ground.

She thought no more.


	19. Chapter 17, Part 1

Author's Note:

Too much happens in this chapter for me to write it all at once, so I've decided to split it up into parts like Chapter 8. This also gives the benefit of me being able to get the parts out faster. :-D

Part 1, The Rescue. Very short.

Unedited. Please forgive.

OOOOOO

She drifts in the gray.

Her ears are ringing. She does not know why.

There are snatches of sound. She tries to grasp them, and loses them just as quickly.

She thinks she hears screaming, but she is not sure.

That could be the sound of a gunshot, but it wouldn't be so quiet.

She feels rain falling, but catches a glimpse of blue sky above her.

The world spins around her, but she is not moving.

The earth shakes beneath her, and she struggles to open her eyes.

Hands grasp at her legs, her arms.

There are bodies around her.

She smells stale air, a horrible stench, sick and sweet.

There are fingers in her mouth. She gags and chokes.

She tries to move but her body is too heavy.

She is pinned.

She is trapped.

OOOOOO

It happens too quickly. They are there, she falls, she is surrounded. He does not have time to think. He raises and fires, ejects the shell, and fires again. They fall around her. Others replace them, shoving the bodies of the fallen out of the way. Their teeth catch in the fabric of her pants, her shirt. They grasp at the soft parts of her body: her stomach, and throat. He sees one reach between her lips, and he thinks of the torn and open mouths of the walkers that he has seen. The shot is clean, the geek collapses over her. He prays that the blood is old and dead enough not to flow, that the red staining her face and shirt is hers alone.

There is screaming, arguing atop the trailer she has fallen from. Someone shoves someone else. Others join. Stupid, he thinks. It is hard to breathe, his heart pounds within his chest, and even that seems painful. His vision spots, his ears pound, he feels hot and cold and wet with sweat. He is dizzy as he climbs the ladder, but ignores it, pushes harder. The strap is rough around his chest, the rifle seems too heavy, and then there is nothing beneath him until the ground meets his soles. He crouches to soften the blow, but his ankle twists beneath him.

He ignores it, and scrabbles toward her.

Someone lands beside him, and then another. They are screaming at him, insults he thinks, but he cannot hear them over the sound of his own heartbeat. They are angry, but he does not watch them. He swings his rifle in a wide arc, the stock slamming into a tattered and broken face. Teeth shatter, nose and cheek bones sink inward. The walker falls, and he moves to the next, the next. His six shots are up.

He swings the rifle again, again. They fall back but rise once more. The others are still screaming. They fire, and fire, the circle of bodies growing wider and wider. Will they ever end? He imagines a mountain of bodies surrounding, falling, and choking him. The vertigo overwhelms him, and he falls to his knees, the world blurring and shifting. He feels the thud as another pair of boots hit the ground. He sees dark hair, blue eyes.

Rick.

The man grabs for his arm, laces it over his shoulders. Daryl shoves him away, and falls once more. There is black on the ground, half-pinned beneath a carcass. He shoves at the body, hears a long and ragged gasp escape from her as the weight is removed from her chest. Her eyes open, but she sees nothing, he knows. The blue disappears as her eyes roll back, and he hears himself screaming, feels it tearing at his throat.

His fingernails gather mud, blood, as he grasps at the thing, her rifle. The knees of his pants are soaked through. His skin feels wet. He presses the switch to auto.

They drift away from the gate, attracted by fresh and proximate meat. They need a path, a way out. Their ranks close in, tighter, and he feels the first cold of panic rising in his throat. He thinks that his ribs may break fully as he squeezes the trigger, but they are falling, they are falling back. He does not know if they will rise again but he does not care. A way out, he thinks, a way out.

There is a hand on his shoulder. His first instinct is to lash out. Rick stops him, grasps him about his arms. He wants to struggle, fear rises and grips at his heart.

"Move her!" He hears, and recognizes the face before him. The pilot. The one with the accent. "We'll cover you!"

He is gone again, and the black woman with him. Someone else jumps, a flash of red. Bobby Lee. His rifle is at the ready, and one, two, three, they fall before him and do not rise again.

He grabs for the empty rifle. Absurdly, he thinks that she will be angry if he leaves it behind. The world spins as he bends to grasp at her arms. Rick shoves the bodies away as Daryl drags her from beneath them.

His vision whites as he hefts her body upward, Rick slinging her arm across his shoulders. She is limp, and her boots gather mud as they drag behind her.

He cannot tell if she is breathing.

OOOOOO

It is barely a hundred feet from where he lands to the gate. It feels like miles. She is dead weight between them. His ears ring with passing rounds. They must wade through the dead. Some still grasp at their feet, tearing at their pants. Daryl moves faster, feels as though his heart may explode within his ribs. He cannot breathe, he cannot think. Tears fill and sting at his eyes. Not like this, not like this. The words circle within his mind, but he does not know what they mean.

The others are before them, and behind them. He does not know when more have come, but they are there. Shots ring out, and the dead are falling. The way is getting clearer. The gate is ahead of them.

It swings open, heavy and creaking. There are bodies pinned to it, caught in the wire and writhing, reaching for them as they pass through. They press against the wire, the skin on their face splitting and peeling back, teeth bared and snapping and bleeding.

His head is pounding, the gall rises in his throat; he vomits, his shirt wet and already stinking. He collapses. More hands grasp at him, and he yells. Terror overwhelms him. He thrashes, but lands no blows. They grab at his shoulders, pin his arms and his legs.

Something stings at his throat.

The world slips away.

OOOOO


	20. Chapter 17, Part 2

Author's Note:

Sorry this took so long… but suffice to say I've had a huge amount of personal stress lately, so writing was not an option. Here's part 2, though.

OOOOOO

_She drifts in the gray._

_Her ears are ringing. She does not know why._

_There are snatches of sound. She tries to grasp them, and loses them just as quickly._

_She thinks she hears screaming, but she is not sure._

_That could be the sound of a gunshot, but it wouldn't be so quiet._

_She feels rain falling, but catches a glimpse of blue sky above her._

_The world spins around her, but she is not moving._

_The earth shakes beneath her, and she struggles to open her eyes._

_Hands grasp at her legs, her arms._

_There are bodies around her._

_She smells stale air, a horrible stench, sick and sweet._

_There are fingers in her mouth. She gags and chokes._

_She tries to move but her body is too heavy._

_She is pinned._

_She is trapped._

OOOOOO

She wakes in a panic, flailing out her arms and legs in a frantic, ignorant attempt at defense.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" The voice is amused, a little confused, but one that she knows. She sits up quickly, head swiveling back and forth so quickly her neck cricks. Wincing, hand cupping the back of her neck, she finds the source of the voice.

"Daryl?"

He smirks at her, easy and sultry in that way she's grown to love in such a short time.

"You were expecting maybe Hank Williams?"

She blinks, sleep making her eyes blurry, attempting to clear them. Her head aches vaguely, her stomach rolls in some way that she can barely feel. She hurts, but somehow it does not register. Why is everything so strange?

She blinks again, swallows, looks around her slowly.

She knows this place, the smooth stone walls, the handprints she placed herself there, spitting charcoal around them like her father had shown her years ago. The handprints had faded decades before, yet somehow they now stood stark and clear against the wall as the day they had been painted there.

"Where are we?" she croaks, her throat feeling sore and dry.

"You know where we are." Daryl says simply, poking carefully at a venison roast over the open fire. The meat smells dull somehow, and even the slight smoke that does not drift upward through the natural chimney in the cave's ceiling does not sting her eyes.

She lays on furs, pads of buckskin and cattail fiber. She feels weak, yet even that feels distant.

"This is home. This cave is above my father's house… How did we get here?"

He looks at her as though he has no idea what she is talking about, lifting the lid from a pot of steaming tubers. There is a wooden bowl of greens off to the side.

"Dinner is almost ready." He says, instead of an answer.

She is racked by a sudden chill, a shooting pain just behind her eyes.

Daryl does not seem to notice.

OOOOOO

His nose stung. The air was acrid, and thick. He choked and coughed, sat upright in bed and grabbed for his leg.

"Jesus fucking Christ!"

"Hey!" A voice barked, a Texas accent, "Lay your ass back down."

"Who the fuck are you?" Daryl growled, trying desperately to remove the blankets from his leg, the pain there searing and aching at the same time.

He finally succeeded, before the hulking man could cross the tent to him, crouched as he was.

"What the fuck is going on?!" His leg was surrounded by a cage, wrapped in bandages, screws from the cage going straight into his skin, straight into the bone from the way it felt.

"Is your leg hurting?" The man asked.

"Is it fucking hurting!?" Daryl shrieked.

The man rolled his eyes, reaching into his pocket. He popped a cap, and a moment later jabbed Daryl in the upper arm.

"Jesus!" He screamed again. "What are you doing?"

"It's a morphine injection. We let the Ativan wear off today. I knew you'd start hurting eventually."

"You gave me fucking Ativan?"

The tall man nodded, crouching down near to him, reaching out to his forehead. Daryl jerked back.

"Hey. Chill out. I'm checking your temperature."

He stilled finally, glowering all the while.

"Your temperature's normal. Your infection's nearly gone." The man nodded, wrote something down on a clipboard that he held in his hands.

"What are you talking about?"

"How much do you remember, Mr. Dixon?" He looked up from his clipboard, one eyebrow raised.

"I remember… making it through the gate… next thing I know I'm going down… and I wake up here."

The man pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, raising and lowering himself into the miniscule folding chair beside Daryl's cot.

He could feel the morphine already, his vision blurring and focusing, the anger getting harder to hold onto as everything in the world began to seem right.

"You fought us for nearly five minutes, Mr. Dixon. We had no choice but to sedate you for the safety of the others. Once we realized the extent of your injury, we decided to keep you sedated."

"Why?" Daryl slurred at him, sniffing and scratching at his nose. Morphine always did make him itch.

"You broke your ankle, most likely when you jumped, Mr. Dixon. To tell you the truth, I have no idea how you made it that far on a compound fracture."

"A what?"

"Your tibia and fibula were both poking through the side of your calf, Mr. Dixon. They broke at the ankle, most likely broke the skin some time from your landing until your arrival at the gate. As covered as you were in blood, we were in doubt as to whether you could have possible escaped the infection. We decided the best course of action was to keep you sedated until your fever developed. You would simply go to sleep, and never wake up."

"But you said I had an infection…" Daryl managed, licking at his suddenly dry lips.

"A localized infection. Whatever it is, that makes the Freaks? You escaped it somehow… The infection you developed was treated with penicillin, most likely from the bacteria in the mud and leaves we cleaned from the wound in your leg. You're healing. You're going to be in the external fixator for several months, a plaster cast after that, and a boot after that… Altogether, I'd say it's going to take about a year for the leg to heal all the way. You're lucky though. It was a very clean break. Surgery was simple."

"How did you manage to do all that?" Daryl whispered, eyes drifting open and shut.

"Well, we made a lovely find of a portable X-Ray machine at an assisted living facility. The surgery was very high-tech… Boiling water, alcohol, a polyethylene tent, and a lot of Lysol." He finished sarcastically. "The external fixator you can thank Aleda for. I asked her what in the hell she thought we'd ever use it for, that there was no way anyone would survive such involved surgery… but you're living proof, Mr. Dixon. "

"Aleda," Daryl said softly, blinking tiredly. "Where is she?"

The man paused, chewing on his lip for a moment.

"She's right in the next tent. We've been keeping you both quarantined."

"Quarantined?"

The man took a deep breath.

"She's dying, Mr. Dixon."

"She's infected?" His voice cracked, despite his best effort, the tears blurring his vision quickly.

"No… It's been three days, she would have died already… from the fever. Her fever is holding at 105, but rising no higher... The problem, Mr. Dixon, is I'm a trauma surgeon, not an infectious disease specialist. She's sick, and she's getting sicker… and I have no idea what's wrong with her."


	21. Chapter 17, Interlude

Smoke rose in great plumes from the pile of bodies at the edge of camp. It lingered and mixed with the fumes drifting upward from the gas generator running beside her tent. The air smelled horrible. He limped on his crutches, careful to keep his foot from ever touching the ground. He remembered how to do this, but his arms were aching already.

They'd wrapped his leg in a garbage bag, tied it shut. He wore a mask over his mouth and nose. It was a miracle he made it through the tent flaps without tripping. Mikey and the black woman stood watch at the door, masked as well, both armed, and heavily. Daryl wondered why, but did not stop to ask.

There was the hiss of an oxygen mask, a horrible gurgling wheeze answering each exhale.

Candy looked up at him, eyes red and watery. She wiped at Aleda's face and arms with a cool cloth; the water smelled of mint.

Her skin was mottled, pale and weak, red with fever, yellow with jaundice. Her liver was failing. Daryl had known enough alcoholics to know what that looked like.

"Oh, Daryl." She grasped him tightly, but carefully.

She took another gurgling breath, muttering something.

"Daryl," Aleda whispered.

He froze in place.

"She's awake, Candy."

The tears came anew, rushing down her face.

"No, Daryl."

"She said my name." He shook his head.

"She's been saying a lot of names. It's fever dreams, Daryl. This is killing her. If it doesn't burn her brain out, the pneumonia will do it, if not that, then her liver and her kidneys. Her whole body is shutting down. She can't even eat. She can't keep nothing down. We don't know what's wrong with her."

OOOOOO

He sits with her for hours, spends hours more brooding in his tent.

He wishes he were alone.

She comes quietly, shyly, all bashful eyes and quick quiet words, sickly sweet, galling, bullshit words, praising his bravery, his strength, his courage, his fearlessness in the face of so much danger, how happy she was that he was healing, how sad she was that Aleda was not.

Daryl couldn't stand the way she looked at him, or the twenty-four just like her that had come before.

"You getting awful popular," Renee grinned at him.

"It's driving me fucking crazy," Daryl growled. "I get one more piece of pie, or cake, or another fucking plate of fried fish I'm gonna chuck it in their fucking faces."

Renee laughed, loud and long.

"Well you oughta think about it. You get 'em to ride you gentle enough might do your pissy attitude some good."

"I ain't fucking interested," Daryl snarled, glaring sideways at the plate of food on the crate beside his cot. "They're all fucking full of shit. Risking her life, risking court martial, taking on their responsibility. Fuck 'em all, I woulda said, but she didn't, and they don't give a fuck about her. She's laying there dying, and ain't nobody even been to see her. They're all full of shit."

"They can't deal with the truth, Daryl. Their savior's gone. They're losing their leader.'

"It ain't the fucking truth," Daryl bellowed. "She's not gonna die. She's _not._"

"You gonna have to accept it, Daryl."

"I ain't going to. I ain't got to."

He swung his leg carefully over the railing of the cot.

"Where the hell are you going?" Renee asked.

"I'm gonna do something about this. _Something_."


	22. Chapter 17: Part 3

The fire crackled, the flames sending little shadows and sparks in the air, across the domed ceiling.

She felt weak and wonderful and well-used. The air beyond her cocoon of fur and buckskin was cold enough to hold her breath, yet she felt warm, comfortable, still buzzing from a high that chemicals could never try to touch.

He shifted against her, his naked chest sliding across her back, his arms winding tight around her. His voice rumbles in her ear, a pleased little sound, and she smiles into the darkness, tilts her head back and feels the rough of his cheek slide over hers.

"Bet that made you feel better," he whispers against her skin.

"Felt something alright," she says in return.

The rough of his palm glides over her stomach, his fingers dipping between her legs again. She shivers, nearly squeals, grins helplessly as he does.

"A little overworked, are we?"

"Maybe a little," she admits.

The haze is disappearing. Things are becoming real again.

OOO

She makes little noises, somewhere far back in her throat. She can no longer speak. There is a tube down her throat, and a tube in her side, one forcing air in, one draining fluid out. Her temperature has risen. Her pulse is weak, her respiration driven only by the machine. She is dead without it. She is dead if they do not find out what is making her like this.

Daryl rubs tiredly at his face, though they have warned him not to touch his eyes. He doesn't care anymore, and removes the mask from over his mouth and nose. He breathes her scent, sweat and sick, still sweet somewhere beneath it. He will remember this, if he remembers nothing else. He will not run from this. Not like everyone else.

She is hot beneath his hands, unbearably so, her cheeks hot beneath his lips. The machine forces another breath into her lungs, and he cannot stop the tears.

"Open your eyes… please… open your eyes."

She does not listen.

OOO

He pressed his lips to her cheek, and she smiled again. His hands drift higher, running over her ribs, her shoulder, across her throat, feeling out the scars there.

"How'd you get them?" he asks for the thousandth time.

"Well, that one.."

_Open your eyes._

She sits upright.

"Did you hear that?"

"Didn't hear a thing." He smiles at her lazily, tries to pull her down again. She resists for a moment, finally relaxes.

_Please... open your eyes._

"No... I know I heard it that time."

She stands, shivering in the cold and moves toward the sound, moves away from him.

He does not look pleased.


	23. Chapter 17, Part 4

Author's Note:

I present to you, the last part of Chapter 17.

OOO

"I wish you would try to eat something, Daryl." Candy said, watching him sadly.

"I'm not hungry," he muttered, and adjusted his leg on the folding stool it was placed upon. The heat of the fire did something to curb the bone-deep ache that the painkillers Donovan had given him did not. He stared into it, as though the flames could yield some much needed answer to him.

"You need to eat… You need your strength… you need to heal."

"I need to drink my milk, so I'll grow up big and strong?" he snapped.

"Don't be mean, Daryl." Candy whispered, looked for all the world as though he had just slapped her in the mouth.

He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing at them again, wishing the vague headache behind them would stop for just one moment.

"You can't just mourn yourself to death. We're losing enough as is."

He bit his lips together, did all he could to quell the rage he felt.

"There was something you didn't tell me… you cared about her, didn't you?"

"There was nothing to tell," he answered flatly, watched a log split and fall beneath the flames. "I never knew her. None of it matters now, anyway. You've all given up on her. Why shouldn't I?"

He stood carefully, limped away from the fire on his crutches.

"Daryl," Candy began, standing to intercept him.

"Get away from me," he said quietly.

She flinched as though he had screamed it.

OOO

He had no idea where he was going. He knew before long his arms would give out on him, but he pushed farther anyway. Finally, he realized where he had ended up.

Donovan.

"You son of a bitch," he breathed.

The man sighed tiredly, did not look up from the fire he was poking at listlessly.

"Go lay down, Dixon, before you fall down."

"All this time… and you've not tried to figure it out… not even _tried."_

"Do you realize… who falls next in the chain of command, Dixon? Do you know whose responsibility these people are now? I've got rations to watch, watch schedules to make. I don't have hours to waste on a hopeless cause."

"Hopeless," Daryl bit out.

"Do you think I haven't tried? That I really haven't begun to try and think of what is wrong with her? I've tried three different antibiotics… wasted them… they've done nothing."

"Three? That's it?"

"Our resources are finite. There must come a time when enough is enough. I counted her among my closest friends… and you really think I've stood by and done nothing? I've done all I can."

"No, it's not all. You can't do this. You can't just let her die."

Donovan watched him for a long moment before he gestured to the canvas tent behind him.

"Go on."

"What?" Daryl snapped.

"Go on."

After a moment, he limped forward, reaching out with one crutch to push open the flaps. The tent held a simple cot, and on the opposite wall, bookshelves made of plywood. The firelight reflected off of the words 'Medical Encyclopedia' on each of the books.

"Go look. If you really think you care more than I do, go look. Find out what's wrong with her. Then come and tell me."


	24. Chapter 18

"What the hell is they supposed to tell me?" he asked, looking back to Donovan.

"They're references. Every syndrome and disorder known to modern medicine is in those pages. In those pages, perhaps you'll find what is wrong with her. I can't say. Whatever it is, it defies my comprehension, and I don't have the time or manpower to search for it. You've got a few hours."

"What happens in a few hours?"

"Morrison and his bunch… they want her taken off the respirator. I can't say I blame them. Every second she's on it the generator is burning more gas… Our resources are finite," he repeated. "She'd want it that way herself. It's for the good of the whole."

Daryl stared at him, uncomprehending.

"You think… she'd wanna die. You're just going to end it, just like that?"

Donovan sighed, placed his head in his hands for a moment.

"I'm trying to hold things together, Dixon, and I'm very close to losing control of all of it. Every day Morrison gains more supporters. People can't tolerate the waste."

"It's not a waste!" Daryl barked.

"Why do you care?" Donovan looked to him suddenly. "What does it matter to you? She'll simply stop tomorrow, and what effect will that have on you? You'll still have the fences, you'll still have food in your belly. Why is her life so important to you?"

He found that he had no clear answer.

OOO

It was amazing to him how often fear was becoming a part of his daily equation.

His wrists ached nearly as much as his leg did, he thought, and he still had some distance to cover. Why did they have to be on opposite sides of the camp?

"Daryl!" It was Carol, and he'd never in his life seen someone so relieved to see his face. He nearly ended up on his ass as she raced toward him, quick to throw her arms about his shoulders as he wobbled in place. "God, I've been so worried about you. You scared us to death. Why haven't you come to see us sooner? And in the dark! You could have fallen. Dear God, you probably need to sit down, here, sit, sit."

He was unceremoniously shepherded to a chair by the fire.

"It's good to see you, man." He returned T-Dogg's salutation with a careful nod.

"It is." Lori put in, though thankfully she made no attempt to approach him. He didn't think he could take the same thing twice in a row.

They all… they all looked happy to see him. He couldn't fathom it, and looked to the ground instead.

"Haven't… much felt like talking," he muttered.

How could he say it? How could he get the words out?

"It's horrible…" Rick said quietly, and Daryl understood that somehow he knew, knew exactly what had brought him here.

"There's books," he blurted out, "Things that… could be wrong." God, no, this wasn't making any sense. They were all confused.

"I need your help," he finished. "And I need it tonight."


	25. Chapter 19

Author's Note:

I've been suffering from terrible writer's block, and the best way I've found to get out of it is to write shorter, more frequent chapters. My apologies if this bothers anybody.

OOO

He was wrong.

That became apparent to him as time went on, and more and more people gathered in the campsite.

He didn't think he had the manpower, he'd said. But they were here.

Andrea was there, Dale, Lori, Glenn, and T-Dogg, Carol and the children. Rick had returned with Renee, Bastian, and Guillaume, Candy with the black woman, Maryann, Dereon, the man he'd met in the woods, and the pilot, Murphy. They'd brought soldiers with them, men he had not met, and the blonde, Dasha. People had drifted in from every part of the camp from curiosity about the gathering, and now all stood, looking to him.

"I…I…" He looked to Rick, felt deeply ashamed at the anxiety emblazoned upon his face.

Rick shook his head slowly.

"This is your show, Daryl."

He swallowed, ground his teeth together, took another breath.

"We don't have much time," he started, felt well on his way to a heart attack. "We need to find out what is wrong with her… what is wrong with Aleda… _She_ doesn't have much time. He's removing the respirator tomorrow."

"What!?" the black woman nearly screamed, and Donovan became the second man nearly twice her size Daryl had seen cower from her. "You're doing what? Has this shit gone to your head, David? You think you've got the power over life and death, you think you get to make that decision?"

He found that he had no way out as the soldiers bunched around him, Maryann stalking toward him.

"I told you… Hard decisions had to be made. You said you weren't going to be the one to make them." Donovan stuttered.

"I said I _wasn't _going to make them. If its gas you're worried about, I'll go siphon it myself."

"Morrison," he began.

"Fuck Morrison! He's already tried to kill her once, you're gonna let him finish the job?"

"There's no proof," he tried again.

"I saw it! With my own fucking eyes, that isn't proof enough for you?"

"You're biased. Everyone knows how you feel about him. It would never stand up in a tribunal—"

"Fuck a tribunal! He should have been killed with his brother! I'm biased, because I know what a sick son of a bitch he is, him and his whole fucking family? If it wasn't for him, she'd never be in this situation. He put his shoulder in her back, and he pushed her off of that roof. I _saw _it. She trusted you, and you give up on her like this? After all she's done for you?"

"What she's done for all of us," Daryl spoke up. "We all owe her for what she's done. It's time we did something for her. He's got books in there, that lists things… things that could be wrong with her. I can't look through all of them on my own. She doesn't have that kind of time. She's getting weaker. She's shutting down. I've been there, every day, watching her die. She needs our help. I need your help."

They murmured amongst themselves, looked between each other. He saw nodding heads, heard 'Yeah's from the crowd, growing louder.

A soldier grabbed a handful of Donovan's shirt, sent him stumbling forward.

"Grab a book, David," Maryann spat. "You're not getting any sleep tonight."


	26. Chapter 20

She stood shaking, searching for the source of the voice she'd heard. She ran for the opening of the cave, and ran smack into something that was not there.

She stumbled backwards, staring out into the night. She reached her hand out, found the same resistance.

"Where do you think you're going?" Daryl said quietly.

She turned slowly, the trembling growing stronger.

The face before her was not one that she recognized.

OOO

His back ached. His eyes hurt. His head was pounding in rhythm with his leg. It had gathered so much fluid that it looked like a balloon, tiny streams of it leaking out around each screw. He shifted uncomfortably, and turned another page.

He had no idea what time it was. The hours had slipped away until time meant nothing at all, only the interminable slide of one page after another. Spots of light dotted the campsite, two dozen flashlights reflecting from smooth white pages. The words were beginning to run together, each entry began to look the same. Hours they had been at it, but nothing he read fit, none of what the others read out loud did either.

They were losing steam, losing hope. Dawn approached, still far down the horizon, but the sun came with dread for Daryl. Some had already given up, closing their books and passing them onto another.

Daryl straightened, rubbing his tired eyes.

"You should take a break, Daryl," Carol whispered from beside him.

"There's not time," he snapped, jerked away from the comforting hand she'd attempted to lay upon his shoulder.

She looked to him forlornly, in a way he did not quite understand. Women, he thought, disgustedly.

"At least prop your leg up."

"There's not enough chairs," he retorted, looking down to the book once more.

"Take mine," she answered, moving it before him. "I'll sit on the ground."

Daryl glared at her, though she still stared back at him with that sad determination etched upon her face.

"Please," she said quietly, and he found himself relenting, lifting his leg carefully and placing it on the seat in front of him.

Carol gave him a small smile, sinking carefully to the ground, returning to her own book. She was nearly done while he was barely halfway through the tome.

They'd always been right, he thought, he was stupid. Half the words he couldn't understand, how could he have ever thought he could find out what was wrong with her, when Donovan himself could not?

He pressed his eyes against the heels of his hands, a growl of frustration coming from deep in his chest.

"Daryl?" Carol whispered again.

"This is fucking pointless. It's pointless. We're never going to figure this out. She's going to die, all because we're too fucking ignorant to figure this out."

"You can't lose hope."

He slammed the book shut, so hard the back cover bounced off of the pages, the book spreading open again upon his lap.

"It's already lost. I can't understand this. This ain't what I'm good at."

"But you have to do it," she looked to him, sorrowful blue eyes trained on his. "You _can _do this, Daryl. I know you can.

"What do you know, you stupid bitch?" he snarled at her. "Half of this shit I can't understand. Listen to this… tiffus salmanelly… What the fuck is that? How am I supposed to find nine symptoms that all match? Do you how impossible that is? Listen to this. Poor appetite, vomiting, abdominal pain, headaches, generalized aches and pains, high grade fever, lethargy, intestinal bleeding, pneumonia, renal and hepatic failure, what does that even mean? How am I supposed to understand?" he screamed.

She looked at him, slack jawed.

"What the fuck are you staring at?" he shrieked, more heads raising from their books as he did.

"Give me the book, Daryl."

He snapped it shut, throwing it at her, hitting her solidly in the chest. She winced at the impact but scrambled to open it again, flipping the encyclopedia again to its last pages.

"Typhoid," she read aloud. "Donovan, it's typhoid. The symptoms all match."

The man stood as Daryl himself straightened, bending forward to peer at the pages opened on Carol's lap.

The man reached for the book, adjusted his glasses upon his nose, rereading the entry.

"No, I'm sorry. The symptoms match, but not the spread of it. It's spread through food and water contaminated with human feces. There would be more than just her sick… There would be an epidemic."

"Shit?" Daryl questioned. "It's spread through shit?"

Donovan grimaced, but nodded his head.

"One of them got its fingers in her mouth. What's to say its last meal wasn't a big ole handful of somebody's guts?" he said excitedly.

The larger man paused, glancing at the text again, looking up to Daryl once more.

"It's possible."

Daryl snatched for the encyclopedia, tilting it toward him.

"It'll say how to treat it, right? What drugs to use? Ampicillin, Bactrim, Septra? We got any of those?"

Donovan shook his head.

"I've tried them, Dixon. They've done nothing."

His heart dropped as quickly as his chin did, before his eyes seized upon a new piece of the entry.

"Resistant… That means it doesn't work, right?"

"Yes," Donovan answered in confusion.

"Some strains are drug-resistant," he read aloud. "It says Cipro.. floxacin. It says that will do it."

"Cipro? That doesn't do us any good."

"Why?" Daryl asked, head snapping upward.

"She's allergic to it, Dixon. Deathly so. We can't treat her with it."

"There's no way?" he whispered.

"There is one way," he answered. "I can give her a shot of epinephrine with each injection of the Cipro. It should counteract the allergic reaction. But we don't even know that's what's wrong with her. There are tests to be done, they'll take at least 10 days to culture."

"So screw the tests," Maryann answered. "Pull a House… treat her first, find out if it's working later."

Donovan look displeased with the answer, but nodded finally, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a key.

"I'll get the vials."

"How long until we know we're right?" Daryl sat straighter in the canvas chair.

"One to two days… if she shows no improvement, we'll know we're wrong."

OOO

"You're not Daryl," she whispered, slipping away as the figure stalked forward.

"It was a lot easier to pull you in when you thought I was. It's a pitiful emotion, love, but you humans seem ever so susceptible to it. And you were so close, another day or so and you'd have been mine. Now this."

"What are you talking about?" There was only one entrance to the cave, the smaller tunnels toward the back only led farther back into the mountain. She was trapped with this… this thing.

"You've cheated me, Aleda, not once, but twice. The suicide bomb in Baghdad, the attack in Kabul? You weren't meant to come out alive, you bitch, you weren't meant to survive."

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," she breathed, shaking harder now. "This can't be happening… this isn't real."

"But it's becoming realer, isn't it? Everyday." The thing whispered, stalking toward her.

"I haven't been here for days," she shook her head vehemently.

"Oh, but you have. Each day you lie sick, each day you grow weaker, more of your soul stays here. More of you is mine as each minute passes. You're dying, Aleda, just as you should have years ago."

She whipped past him as he drew near. He caught hold of her wrist, wrenched her back with impossible strength. Her back and head slammed into the stone, her vision whiting out for a moment. He caught her by the throat before she fell, lifting her until her toes barely dragged the ground. She saw spots before her eyes, choking as the darkness came closer and closer.

OOO

He was dozing. His head slipped forward, chin on his chest. His vigil had gone on for two days now. He had left her tent only when necessary, remained beside her throughout the days and nights, earning a suspicious glare from Donovan each time he entered to administer the antibiotic.

He startled awake just as the man slipped back through the tent flaps, vial and syringe in hand.

"Why are you still here?"

"None of your damned business. Just do your job," Daryl growled.

The man glowered at him, but said nothing more, delivering one injection into the IV, then a second.

Her body shook suddenly, sending the needle through the tubing, sending a spray of saline outward.

"What's happening?" He was fully awake now, watching in horror as she jerked and twisted. "What the fuck did you do to her?"

A horrible noise escaped her quivering throat.

"She's choking! What did you do to her!?"

Donovan stared at the monitor before him, before leaning quickly over Aleda, placing a hand before her nose.

"Of course, she's choking," the man whispered, looking up at him. "She's breathing on her own."


	27. Chapter 21

Her breath came out in a rush as he pulled the tape from around her mouth, removed the tube from her throat. She still made that horrible choking noise, but Donovan did not seem nearly as alarmed as Daryl felt.

"Help her up."

He leaned forward as best he could, looped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her upward. She began to cough, ragged and watery, phlegm spilled from her mouth into the wastebasket Donovan held before her.

"Keep her up, she needs to breathe."

She jerked, disoriented. Daryl grabbed for her wrist with his free hand.

"Stop… stop… you're going to tear out your IV."

"You're gonna hurt me," she whispered, voice hoarse.

"No… no, darlin', I ain't gonna hurt you. You're safe. You're getting better."

She seemed to relax some in his arms, lifting her head slowly, peering around her.

"Why am I so weak?"

"You've been sick," Daryl whispered, his mouth pressed against her ear. "You've been sick a long time."

"A long time?" She was cut off by another bought of coughing, Donovan again offering the wastebasket for her to spit in. "My throat hurts," she whispered.

"I'll get her some water," Donovan said quietly, and exited the tent.

He set his hand beneath her chin, turned her gaze to meet his eyes, smoothing her tangled hair back from her face.

"You look like shit," she muttered, and he laughed, pressing his lips to her forehead. It was blessedly cool. He tightened his arms about her, stopped when she winced and tried to pull away from him.

"I hurt all over. My chest hurts."

"We'll remove the drainage tube soon now that you're able to expel the fluid by coughing." Donovan answered.

She grunted in pain, pulled far enough away from Daryl to look down at her side, the tube sticking out from there.

"What the hell's been going on?"

"Shh… Drink some water, baby, your throat's dry."

Her breaths were still short, watery, as she panted against his throat. She lifted her head again, accepting the straw he offered, taking long gulps from it.

"Not too much. She may vomit again. Keep her still. We can remove the IV and tubing. I need bandages." Donovan turned and exited the tent.

"You shouldn't be here," she whispered, head rising again to look at him. The whites of her eyes were still yellow, but her color was returning, more so with each minute it seemed.

"It's a little late for that," he whispered in return, smoothing his palm across her cheek, setting his arm more firmly around her, tugging her as close as he could without hurting her. "I've been here the whole time. Almost two weeks now."

"Two weeks? I don't... remember two weeks."

"You were out."

"You were," she countered. "For more than a day… I remember… they told me you broke your ankle, that you'd… gone after me… That you'd broken your ankle and… you were probably infected."

"I was sick for a little while. By the time I woke up, you were gone."

"I don't remember," she whispered. "I felt… lousy… and tired… and I hurt all over. I started… getting sick… everytime I ate… then I don't remember." She spoke in little gasps, her chest still gurgling with each short inhale.

"You had typhoid." Daryl answered, breathing against her scalp despite the scent of sweat and dirt that emanated from her hair.

"I didn't think… that even existed anymore."

"You had it," he repeated. "I never… never realized what you meant to me… until you were leaving me." He pressed a kiss to her cheek.

She shied away, flinching.

"Watch out… I've got stitches."

He laughed, smoothed her hair back from her face. She leaned against him, and he'd never felt anything better in the world. Even his leg seemed to ache less.

"You know, you smell like shit." He muttered into her hair, laughed again as she growled at him.

OOO

Donovan had returned to remove the IV and tubing, and now she bore a bandage over her hand and her side, stemming the bleeding from the holes in her flesh they'd left behind.

He rubbed a soapy cloth carefully over her skin. She winced, even the touch of it too much for her to bear at times. She flinched as she lifted her arms, and legs for the course of the cloth. Her whole body ached, and Daryl treated it with as much care as he could. She could make it no farther than the chairs in the front of her tent, where she sat upon a towel.

"You can't make it to the river," Daryl had said.

"I'll settle for a whore bath," she returned.

He rinsed her gingerly with the same cloth, soaked in warm water. He'd never seen anything more beautiful in his life, and cherished every scar, every suture his hand passed near.

They washed her hair over a bucket, and he watched her wince as the soap ran over the cuts on her face. Rinsed and clean, he ran a comb through it, carefully pulling the tangles from it, though even that left her near tears.

"My skin hurts," she whispered, and he shushed her, smoothing his hand over her hair.

"You'll get better… you'll get stronger."

She limped to the bed again as he hopped after her. He sank down beside her, and pressed a kiss to her temple. She leaned back against his chest, exhausted.

"Sleep, baby girl."

She scooted back on the bed, laying on the fresh linens Candy had placed there just before her bath.

"Stay with me," she whispered, and he maneuvered after her as best he could, slipping behind her.

She winced as she tugged his arm over top of her, and she sank into slumber immediately, real sleep, no fevered coma. He listened to her breathe, held her tight against him, felt her heart beating strong and steady within her chest.

He too slept, as he had not in weeks.


	28. Chapter 22

Author's Note:

I'm feeling fluffy tonight, so fluff is what you're getting. And a bit of smut. So there are warnings for that as well. Thank you to everyone who reviews, for reviews feed the muses. Thank you to everyone that reads these random scribblings of mine. You're my heroes. :-D

OOO

He woke sometime that night on his back. He could see the glow of lanterns outside of the tent's walls. He lay beneath a blanket, put there by who he did not know. She still lay pressed against his side, her head on his chest now. Closer examination revealed her eyes were opened in the dark.

"Hey," he whispered, voice rough with sleep.

She turned her head to look at him.

"Hey," she whispered in return, and he lifted his head, reached to guide hers. She allowed and met him in a solid kiss. She wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders, pulling him onto his side, pressing fully against him again, hooking her leg over his hip. He placed his hand on hers, squeezing briefly before she pulled back to breathe.

"Does everybody really know? It was really two weeks?"

"It was. If they don't know, I imagine they have an idea. Donovan knows. He knows how many days and nights I've sat in here. MaryAnn, and Mikey know… for the same reason."

She looked down, hand reaching up to grip over his ribs. He was glad the bruises there had long since healed.

"I told you I didn't want anyone to know. You didn't think about my wishes while I was incapacitated?"

"Frankly, I didn't care." He looked at her resolutely in the half-darkness. "All I thought about was the next day might be the day I'd lose you, or even that day. You were dying, Aleda, do you realize that? Do you realize how close you came? Morrison wanted you off the respirator, and that was the only thing keeping you alive."

"Morrison," she breathed, her nails digging into his side briefly. "He has to be dealt with."

"And he will be," he whispered in return, reaching out to smooth the hair back from her face, carefully. "As soon as you're strong enough. The book said to look to ten days for full recovery. Until then, I think you're about as weak as a chicken fart, and not liable to deal with anything."

Her face bore an angry look, but she laughed despite it. He smiled at her, fingers running through her hair. She closed her eyes, tilted her head back into his hands.

"Why would you do all this for me? Why would you care so much?"

"I don't know," he shook his head, and she raised hers, opened her eyes again to look at him. "I still don't know. I only knew that I couldn't lose you. Not that soon."

She grinned sideways at him.

"You just wanted that next time… that's all."

He grinned at her in return, ducked his head to kiss her again.

"Maybe," he whispered against her lips.

"Didn't think it would take this long," she licked her lips, the tip of her tongue slipping against his lips. He breathed in quickly, hand gripped tighter on her hip. "Thought surely I'd get you back in the buff 'fore the week was out."

"Ya enjoyed it that much?" he grinned.

"Maybe I just thought you'd be an easy target, much as you enjoyed it."

She slid her arms about his shoulders again, pulling him down to kiss her again.

"Don't lie," he whispered. "You missed this."

She cupped his jaw in her hand, pulled back enough to look at him.

"Do you wanna know the truth?" she asked, leaning her forehead against his.

"What?"

"I dreamed about you… when I was out. I dreamed you were with me."

Something clenched in his chest, an unfamiliar feeling.

"I was with you. Everyday. I spoke to you, asked you to wake up, and come back to me."

"I think I heard you… toward the end… I heard something telling me to open my eyes."

"I was about to give up on you. I couldn't hold out hope anymore."

"But you did. You must have. Somebody must have, or I wouldn't be here."

"Donovan had medical encyclopedias… Over two dozen people came to help read them, to try and find what was wrong with you. Everybody got a letter. Mine was T," he finished quietly.

"You found the answer." She smiled at him. "You saved me."

"Not just me," he shook his head.

"No… none of it would have happened without you. You did it… and I have to thank you for it. You saved my life. You jumped off that trailer, and you got me back behind the fences."

"Anybody would have done it," he whispered.

"But who went first? Who took that risk, when everyone else waited?"

He breathed in, could do nothing more than shake his head.

"You did something brave, and selfless. You risked your life to see me safe. Do you know what that says about you?"

"That I'm stupid… and rash. I could have died."

"And without you, I would have. I wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for you. Thank you, Daryl. You just proved me right… everything that I said about you that night is true."

She kissed him then, and did not let go this time.

OOO

It wasn't the same as before. It was not rough, or quick, or abandoned. Their movements were deliberate, and slow, and gentle.

She touched him like he was made of glass, and even the slight pain of the leg of his jeans slipping past the external fixator seemed as nothing. He sat up in bed, let her undo the buttons of his shirt, lifted his arms above his head and let her toss away the undershirt.

She kissed every inch of him it seemed, and wrapped her lips around him, working him to full hardness with her mouth. She moaned, as though this alone was enough to send her over the edge.

She straddled his hips, and they kissed until neither could breathe, explored and played with tongues and teeth as his hands traveled up and down her back, sought out the scars there and traced them with his fingertips.

She pushed him back against the pillows, and the passage was easier this time, only a faint moment of pain on her face as he slipped inside. She fit like a glove, he thought, and grinned in the darkness, lost the expression in a moan as she first tilted her hips, undulated above him like a snake. Oh, he had been right about this. He moaned, pressed upward with one leg to meet her downward thrusts, sending a shock through him each time their hips met.

She leaned over him, the tips of her breasts swaying and brushing over his chest. She met his lips again, ran her tongue along his teeth, and pressed down harder with her hips, brought him deeper, it seemed, with every downward thrust.

She danced above him it seemed, hips writhing back and forth, in circles, her muscles gripping him tight then tighter with each movement.

He closed his eyes, moaned into the darkness, his hand seeking out her mound, his fingers splayed across her stomach as his thumb worked at her clit, hard and erect, her flesh slippery, wet, and hot. Her fingernails dug into his chest, and she moaned as he did, their voices joining just as their bodies had.

He brought her there not once, but twice before his own resolve melted, holding her down as he came within her, her hips still swaying in his hands, her muscles still working around him. She fell forward on his chest, gasping for air, but if she felt anything like him, there was none to be had.

They lay together afterwards, the covers pushed down, the windows in the tent unzipped to let the evening breeze drift through.

Nothing had ever seemed so right to him, so perfect. She lay with her arm and her leg slung across his middle, his arm beneath her, his hand pressed to the center of her back. He could not touch enough of her. His hand traveled over her stomach. What would she do if that flat belly began to grow, if she came to realize she carried his child? It was a risk they took, each time they came together like this. Did she know that? Was she hoping for it? Had she done as she had said, and chosen the strongest for her mate?

He thought too far ahead.

For now, he could do nothing but thank God that she was here with him at all, healing, and again sleeping peacefully, each gentled breath brushing over the skin of his chest. He would prove her right, he resolved, he would make himself the good choice, the best choice. He would make himself worthy to father her children.

His mind whirled with a thousand things he needed to do, what he had to prove to her. He prayed that she would see it, that she would choose him. He had not prayed in years, but he fell asleep with the words of the prayer upon his lips, that he could live up to every expectation she had for him.

Something from within in him told him that he could.


	29. Chapter 23

It was another fourteen days before she felt like herself. Daryl had been there every day to help when needed, but the time had come when he was needed less and less. He almost felt proud to see her standing straighter, moving more easily, growing stronger each and every day.

The tension had been high on Morrison's side of camp. A full twenty men, women, and children camped around him, and the murmuring had already begun. The whispers of 'favorite', the sneers of 'golden boy.' He'd heard the word 'toy' more than once, but ignored all of it. Daryl saw the looks, every time he made his way to the latrines, past what had become their 'section'. They all looked at him differently now.

Everyone looked at him differently now. Renee had made a great show of his approval. Candy wouldn't stop smiling at him.

"I knew it. I knew there was something you wasn't telling me! I oughta smack you in the mouth, Daryl, keeping a secret like that. All the plans I had, right out the window, you was already together."

"Who could doubt it? Face like that. Who could resist it?" Renee boomed, grinning at Daryl's discomfort.

"Can I have your tent?" Bastion asked.

"Why?" Daryl asked in confusion.

"Well… you'll be living with Aleda now, right? I mean, you have been for the past, like, month…"

"Ain't exactly been invited." He muttered.

The others did not tease him nearly as much.

"I'm happy for you," Carol had said to him softly, sadly. He couldn't understand why she looked at him the way she did, and bowed his head instead.

"He'll be nice to her, Mommy," Sophia said, sensing her melancholy as Daryl did, and taking it for worry.

T-Dogg and Glenn grinned at him endlessly, but Rick treated him much the same, spent his time inquiring of Daryl's health, and Aleda's recovery.

Shane was conspicuously absent, and Rick frowned when Daryl asked him about it.

"He's been spending a lot of time on the south side of camp." Rick said, and Daryl knew what that meant.

He had been absent from the attempt to discover Aleda's illness. He had been in Morrison's camp instead. One of the ones who believed Aleda's death would be for the good of the group.

Aleda took the news much as Rick did: with displeasure.

"They're splitting the camp up. They're trying to turn this into a civil war. Us against them."

"What are you gonna do about it?" Daryl asked, watched from a chair in the front of the tent as she laced her boots onto her feet.

"Only thing I can do. Put a bullet through his head, and watch them crumble."

"You think this is something you can do on your own?"

She shook her head, straightened from over her thighs.

"I gotta have muscle behind me, or the first one to get a gun's gonna be aiming for me. But that's one thing I got over him. He had to sneak around to try and take me out. I'm gonna do it in broad damn daylight."

"I'd come with you," he whispered, and she nodded, bent to kiss him, held him tight about his shoulders.

"I know you would. Do what you can for me. Tell the others. If this turns into a firefight I want the civilians out of the way, you understand? They want their war, they'll get it."


End file.
